This turned into a hell of a rant, I apologize but I'm still kind of proud of it.

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We made surveillance capitalism the default method of financing every free-at-point-of-use service on mobile devices before we understood what that meant, and people now have zero perception of the worth of mobile-based software. People happily pay for desktop software but the decades of everything on a phone being free by default despite the economics of that making no sense have made it borderline impossible to sell software to people for their phones.

At the same time government has been completely asleep at the fucking wheel with regard to any regulation to protect consumers. Consumers shouldn't have to know the "tradeoffs" of free software, they shouldn't need to vet vendors of software on app stores for privacy policies. People should be protected by default. This "informed consumer" garbage is why we can't get anything done in a regulatory sense because these companies will make the argument that users consented when talking to any layperson user of MyFitnessPal will have you understand they really did not within 5 goddamn minutes.

Could people read terms of service? Yes. Do they? No, because people have shit to do and nobody aside of an activist or someone with an interest in it is going to read 110 pages of terms of service each from the 50 services they're currently using and it's unreasonable to suggest that they should, and that's JUST the reading, even if they read it, do they understand it? Because most people according to a stat I saw recently about the United States read at about a sixth grade level, which is going to be a struggle to get through any legal document. And 4% apparently are completely illiterate.

I don't mean to rant here but this pisses me off so much. Our entire society is constructed around a set of assumptions about people who are at least some level of educated, with decent english literacy, who have the time and energy to dedicate to managing these various things, and yeah, if you're that theoretical person, you can probably do quite well for yourself in the United States. But what if you aren't?

What if you're one of the millions who have to work three fucking jobs to survive and don't have time to read the terms of service for twitter, and just want to relax? What if you're illiterate? What if you're disabled in some way that impedes your ability to read, or your ability to understand what data harvesting is or means? Does your inability to meet the standard I've outlined above just mean you're fodder for the scummy business alliance, ready to be taken advantage of at every single turn by everyone who can, because it's more profitable that way even if it means you will be broke, exposed, and/or otherwise exploited at every single turn and probably have a pretty miserable life?

I am long tired of living in a society that is clearly, bluntly, at every turn designed for companies to live and thrive in and not people. I'm tired of people being hung out to dry because "freedom." Nobody needs or wants the freedom to be recklessly and hopelessly exploited to the ends of the goddamn earth, and I'm sick of pretending there's no way for us to know that difference.

/rant