> But I would like to welcome the NYT to 20 years or so ago when Google realized that there was money in the data

Nothing against snark, but I'm confused with what you're saying here. Are you implying that the NYT and media in general have not covered Google and other companies' threats to privacy? Or are you arguing that they haven't covered it enough, and your metric for this, ostensibly, is that these companies still exist and/or no one has been imprisoned or otherwise heavily sanctioned?

I ask because the story under discussion is explicitly not an investigation of illegal activity, but more the revelation/explanation of how closely our lives can be surveilled via smartphone through our consent. The article outright says that what's being described isn't illegal:

> Today, it’s perfectly legal to collect and sell all this information. In the United States, as in most of the world, no federal law limits what has become a vast and lucrative trade in human tracking. Only internal company policies and the decency of individual employees prevent those with access to the data from, say, stalking an estranged spouse or selling the evening commute of an intelligence officer to a hostile foreign power.

– and let's face it, if the authors hadn't emphasized this, half of us here would be ripping the authors for dishonest hype and clickbait for trying to "fool" the public into an outrage.

> One of the most amazing things about the news in the last few years is how stories that used to have international, severe impact and political repercussions just drift off into the ether now. No follow-up, no continuing coverage.

Given your opening statement, it's hard for me to know if this is an empirical assessment based on what you've observed, or whether your ability to pay attention to unfolding investigations/scandals are unreasonably dampened by skepticism and unreasonable impatience. This year alone we've seen severe and international repercussions from the Epstein scandal, which was catalyzed by Julie Brown, a Miami reporter who had been following him for years, long enough to know to keep digging when Trump's nominated labor secretary happened to be the Florida prosecutor who gave Epstein his sweet 2010 deal. I assume, like most people, you are dissatisfied that Epstein suddenly died before the possibility of a trial. Are you under the impression that journalists, including Brown, have dropped looking into Epstein? Or that something/anything should be happening faster and more noticeable to you and the public?

The reality is, many investigations happen (especially at the local level) that do effect important change, but after the initial public outrage and sanctions, if the change perpetuates, its through years-long process of policy and legislation, which you aren't likely to notice (almost by definition, if something is fixed, we take it for granted) The press itself is not given the power to directly make that change itself, and I think this is acceptable by anyone (i.e. just about everyone who is not part of the press) who hates the phenomenon of "trial by press".

All that said, I am curious what exemplary investigations you have in mind that, back in the better days, met your standard for to speedy, significant, and systemic change? For the U.S. press, Watergate is still seen as the gold standard for a major impact investigation. It took a more than 2 years from the break-in to when Nixon resigned in 1974. In that span, Nixon won re-election by the biggest landslide in American history, and many people who experienced this period would be justified (until 1974) into thinking Watergate amounted to very little.