noreddit323

Well of course. The old school business class is being outdone by them.

The east coast media elites are now focusing on west coast rabble rousers.

I'm not saying it isn't entirely deserved. But they're not doing anything catalogs, grocery stores, and others haven't been doing for years.

West coast tech has the visiblity, the public is growing mistrustful, and are easier to vilify to people that don't realize the cell phone providers have been tracking their locations for decades (used to work for one of the top 3 in network ops, oh yeah, they could find you within a block back in the 90s). Or that Sears has profiles on their customers dating back quite a while.

Why the sudden concern over tech companies mining our habits?

Advertisers have been doing it for years, using government funded research in military propaganda that made it's way into universities after WW2 as marketing and journalism programs.

This rhetoric is something like "Kill this particular witch!" without questioning whether the belief we hold on how the world works is rational.

EDIT: let me re-state:

Why is the public conversation around data mining limited to west coast tech?

Media be capitalizing on the public mistrust in the air after the election, and government is leaning in.

Why should any big brand or corporate master be enabled to collect and analyze my behavior in an effort to get me to buy more of their widgets without my explicit approval?

Reddit is work friendly 4chan. That is, (mostly) not quality content.

I stick to a search engine rather than browsing Reddit directly. If what I'm looking for comes up in a relevant Reddit thread, huzzah.

I get the contemporary meme is "Agree with great-great-grandpas economics of 'survival of the fittest'." But I feel little obligation to pander to it everywhere it exists.

Maybe I'm an odd bird, having grown up in the remote wilderness in the 80s, no TV, growing food and hunting/fishing, and only using money for things like clothing and basic services (water/electricity/phone).