> privacy is a thing people care about.

Sadly, it seems that privacy is something that HN readers care about, but precious few others.

Look at the success of Facebook. The covers have been off that stinker for years, yet people still regularly use it; often to the exclusion of more traditional media. I have quite a few friends that I don't get invited to their occasions, because they only advertise them on FB. They invite a bunch of randos they've never met, but not those of us, they see all the time.

To be fair, if I sit down, and describe exactly what the ramifications of the "always on, always open" Facebook presence means, people will usually suddenly value privacy, but it seems that no one actually ever does that, at a level most folks can understand.

Hysterical rantings (even when well-founded), by geeks, don't get through to most folks. It needs to be done in the vernacular, and via media they actually consume.