Sure in theory they could be selling access to anyone’s Gmail account to the highest bidder, but that’s going to lose them money by actively driving their customers away.
Google may be actively harmful/evil, but they aren’t stupid.
However, I do care about what other uses my data might be used for.
Therefore, googles solution of using all my private data, but with the opensource code running on my machine within my control, is actually perfect for both me and them.
This is the biggest problem. If it's not a big deal, fine -- explain this clearly to everyone how it all works.
Google is likely afraid of a similar backlash as what happened to Apple when they wanted to use local hashing of images.
They might consider it if they couldn’t basically do the same thing via upload data.
Nice try Sundar Pichai.
I'd say that doing so might drive some of their users (i.e., product) away, but would be a boon for their customers (i.e., advertisers).
And IIUC, they are already selling access to the information they glean from reading the contents of gmail accounts by using that data to "target" ads at gmail users. No, Google isn't literally selling the contents of email messages, but they are selling access to user information based on the content of those email messages.
Based on their behavior to this point, one can be pretty confident that Google/Alhpabet will do whatever they think will maximize revenue and profit, regardless of the impact that might have on their product (i.e., you)>