The excuse I always hear is that they simply don’t care. It doesn’t negatively effect them so why should they care?

I’ll also post a few replies to those arguments.

• “I have nothing to hide” - this link explains it well, but TL;DR: loss of privacy eventually leads to loss of freedom.
• “I’m not doing anything illegal” - until your government decides that what you’ve been doing is now illegal. And if you’re gullible enough to believe that the government works for you, I have bad news for you…
• “I’m not doing anything immoral” - this is 1) likely false, as most [all?] people got a few skeletons in the closet, even given your own moral rules; and 2) subjective, as what you consider immoral might not be the same as other people consider immoral. However the consequences of the later are fairly objective - those people might decide to ruin your life because what you’re doing is immoral for them.
• “I’m not important enough to monitor” - we’re in a digital age with bulk processing of information.
• “I don’t care about corporate data profiling and targetted advertisement” - they influence your buying decisions on an emotional (non-rational) level, making you less able to buy things based on your own interests and instead buy stuff for the sake of some greedy fuck’s interests.
• “It’s too much effort” - do you even leave your bed?

Not an excuse, but an explanation: ignorance.

Most people don’t know how ads or data collection works beyond the obvious uptick in a product after you search for it. They don’t know what impact it might have.

Full disclosure: I’m mostly in this camp. I only recently started using firefox over chrome, for example. I know that big tech collects obscene amounts of data, and monetizes it by targeted advertisements, but…beyond that, I don’t know what FAANG can do with the data collected on me. I only have a vague idea of what’s being collected.

The excuse I always hear is that they simply don’t care. It doesn’t negatively effect them so why should they care?

Not caring about digital privacy can stem from being overwhelmed and defeated. Everything we use is tracking us and selling our data. It used to be just websites, but now even dishwashers need to be connected to the internet.

It’s not always obvious how to establish privacy either. Like, your web browser just needs an extension, but how do you block trackers on your tv?

If you attempt to block everything but reach a thing that you can’t, it feels like it ruins the whole endeavor. Like, you can stop your phone from tracking your location, but your car will still be able to. So now your location data is out there anyway. It’s inevitable, yay.

It’s not just companies either, governments also heavily tracks us and will cooperate with each other on it. For example, if we assume that the US is being honest about not spying on us, it still doesn’t stop them from buying our info from China or Britain.

Establishing internet privacy is simply too hurclean of a task for most people to handle. It takes a lot of time, education, and stress to do, and likely won’t be enough.

Worst of all, if you somehow manage to create complete privacy, you won’t have anything to show for it. The benefits are too abstract. Internet privacy or not, you still need to find a job, go grocery shopping, etc etc. None of which are noticeably impacted by data privacy.

It’s much much easier to just not think about it.

The excuse I always hear is that they simply don’t care. It doesn’t negatively effect them so why should they care?

Funny enough I haven’t heard the “I have nothing to hide” one much. They either don’t care about the topic at all (especially since they don’t notice the influence, even if it is there), or by now just accepted it because it’s too much trouble to do something about.

A bit off topic, but in continuation of that: And honestly, if you’re not already in it, I can kinda see that. If you know what to do, life without Big Tech and other tracking stuff isn’t too hard or inconvenient. But for Average Joe who barely knows how to open FB, setting all that crap up and finding everything out is a huge task. How often don’t we see people who are trying to do stuff that they think will help, but because XYZ reason actually doesn’t matter shit or even makes it worse instead of better?

Doesn’t change the fact I do have big interest in privacy & security, do what I can to better mine, and will help my close ones with it if I can. Nor does it change that I will advocate for it, and tell people (in honesty) that every step matters even if you can’t do it all. But at the same time I can kinda understand Average Joe being more busy with the stuff he notices directly is troubling him in his everyday life, and isn’t that eager to get into the deep rabbit hole of digital privacy.

It’s also why I like services like Proton and Signal. They are easy. While there sure is risk in not having all control yourself and instead relying on a provider who has closed off area’s and in theory could turn evil, Average Joe won’t ever get into the complexity of doing it himself. He either needs a pre-made easy-to-use setup, or he’ll go there where it is available at the cost of privacy.

I managed to get my almost my whole family and friendgroup on Signal. Some friends switched to Proton too. But even most into-IT ones aren’t on Matrix, Mastodon or Lemmy. It’s exactly because of this.

“I have nothing to hide” is the most common one I hear. I usually respond with “then why do you close the door the bathroom?”, “why do you wear clothes?”, or “then let me read all the messages on your phone”. Everyone has something to hide. Another one I hear a lot is “These companies already have all my data so it doesn’t matter!”. This is a really bad argument because if you forget to close the bathroom door once and I see you pooping I doubt you would then stop ever closing the bathroom door since I’ve already seen you pooping once.