>I don’t think anyone should really concern themselves ethically with what some random person wants them to do with the information.

Did you pay for the product? See, that's what you get under Rights of First Sale. If you pay for it, it's yours. Free and clear, no entanglements whatsoever. You still generally have to ask and negotiate a sale.

>This isn’t like ensuring a sexual partner is an enthusiastic participant.

I wasn't even going to bring it up, but since you opened the door... Someone has to bear significant cost to bring into being something (this is the part you claim to understand, do I'll hold you to your given); you come along and enter a business relationship with them (they are a supplier), set their compensation at non-negotiable 0, use their output as your input, to enable you to do things that they might not be at all comfortable contributing to, even indirectly, which again, you don't even know either way, because you didn't ask. Just saying, you've got more similarity here than you may be comfortable with on further deconstruction. Can't blame you for not wanting to do it, but as someone who has, maybe you should reevaluate?

Besides which, why does everyone think "consent" only applies to sex anyway? Consent is a fundamental underpinning of a liberal government of, by, and for the people.

>This feels to me more like I’m not going to ask mommy for permission every time I want to play outside (let alone care if I’m told “no”).

Live somewhere in the midst of a warzone, political upheaval, or a high crime area, and this could get you shot. In the case you were a child, where your mother has custodianship of you, she bears responsibility for your actions. That you, in that situation, would not care if she said no, just sort of proves my point.

Stakes may be low, but there is a flow to the interaction. If it were not an issue in our industry "it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission" wouldn't be such a sticking point of our industry.

It's reflected everywhere. Even the innocuous places. Our biggest industry actors have made their fortunes on tracking people whether they wanted to be tracked or not. We have browser fingerprinting, which is the equivalent of "hold on a minute, need to figure out what your living room looks like so I can forward the description to all my buddies so we'll know who you are when we next see you." Except that isn't ever outright said or explained to the end user, because if it was, no one would ever consent. Which is why nobody asks and just does, which proves our industry has a problem with consent.

These are exactly the types of thing to get tied in ethical knots over, because damnit, we won't be here forever, and we're setting the example for down the line. While it'd be nice for our practices around IP to be less rigid, there is still a line to be drawn such that it is not okay to just run off with digital info because digital.

Every vice we maintain for ourselves individually, will be abused collectively; likely to a far more destructive degree. Asking first is not a huge ordeal. Lord knows. We might get so tired of being asked we finally figure out some default terms so that people can stop asking. That never happens if no one bothers to get the ball rolling though. You have to ask to get the iteration started.