Yeah echelon seemed overwhelming at the time, and encryption was to be the answer.

But it turn out surveillance works just fine if you only focus on the meta data. Knowing who takes to whom, and which sites people visit is much more valuable (and much cheaper) than scanning the actual payload.

And why collect all that data yourself if ad companies are happy to sell it to you, ie to the government? (Huh, maybe that's why Facebook changed its name to Meta, come to think of it)