In a poll of "do you want to be surveilled", "do you think mass surveillance is good", sure. But in terms of revealed preferences, people will happily give up privacy for mild convenience.
What's really true is that people are, 99% of the time, not actually given that choice. For "revealed preferences theory" to work, the people involved would need to consistently have a free choice between two options. And for people who have had their finances gradually stretched and stretched over the past 40 years of growing inequality, "cheaper but worse" is not a free choice.
It's true there are people without choice, but most people aren't without choice, and they choose convenience.
Phone calls, knocks on doors, emails, regular meetups at places.
People initially chose Facebook because it truly offered a novel and improved service, and the true cost users would pay for it wasn't obvious to anyone yet. The "wall", chronological friends-only feeds, etc. provided genuine value, and at that point the public at large were almost completely oblivious to how much personal data was being collected from them (and even less as to how it might be used in ways counter to their own interests). Once they'd fully captured the vast majority of user share, Facebook clawed back value by deprecating the chronological feed, serving ads and "high-engagement" posts in place of friend submissions, and generally ramped up their data harvesting significantly further since.
Most people would agree that the service is far worse than what they initially signed up for, but feel like there's no longer a viable alternative that would allow them to maintain the same level of communication with the people they care about.
Facebook users are not "choosing convenience" by staying on the only platform that all of their friends and family use exclusively. They're effectively held hostage by network effects that were intentionally planned and designed around producing that lock-in effect and guaranteeing that all potential alternatives either withered on the vine or were absorbed (e.g. Instagram). To the extent there's a "choice," it's a coerced choice on purpose.
Come on, you're trying to tell me that people didn't understand that when they give someone a thing, that someone has the thing they gave them?
> provided genuine value
Yes, the convenience.
> how much personal data was being collected from them
"They collected it; I didn't give it to them."
> but feel like there's no longer a viable alternative that would allow them to maintain the same level of communication with the people they care about.
Yes, "the pesky convenience is forcing me."
> Facebook users are not "choosing convenience" by staying on the only platform that all of their friends and family use exclusively.
"My friends and family are forcing me."
Despite my comments, I'm not totally against the use of Facebook, but I am against the surrender of personal agency and blame-shifting these comments are demonstrating.
This is a bad faith argument, because Facebook collects far, far more than "the thing they gave them".
Wasn't it just last year that it became known how Facebook and Instagram apps track your browsing through WebRTC? That alone is far far more than people knowingly give them.