Yeah. This is exactly the problem. There is too much of a disconnect from the action to the impact in this case. I think if most people saw precisely what data is collected on them and how it is used (and how often it is part of data breaches from these identity resolution platforms and third parties), I think they'd care more.

But nearly everyone has more urgent and pressing concerns like making monthly rent or a medical bill or gas money. So ACR on a TV doesn't register.

And something negative hardly ever happens to them, or anyone, from that direct source, so why spend a brain cell on it.

The worst thing for privacy advocates is that there has yet to be a general public reckoning with the ad-economy of the last 20 years.

For all intents and purposes, the average person who has paid no mind to their privacy over that time period is really no better or worse off than the person who has devoted hours to combating all forms of invasion.

If there was a mass scale visible event of privacy loss, i.e. Meta somehow ends up in a shamelessly evil sociopaths hands who decides to start very publicly embarrassing random people with privately collected data, there would be very swift and immediate action (yes the parallels here are not lost on me, scale is the difference)

Just look at datacenters. The public didn't even know what a DC was 6 months ago, and now politicians are getting elected to ban them. What happened? AI gave the mass public a common sensation of fear. Privacy has still not had it's "AI fear" moment.

You see that, Timmy? Every time someone complains about something, somenone says that it happens because no one cares. What’s the logical conclusion, then? To not care yourself. Because it would be too difficult to change anything if you’re completely alone. And so you have thousands of people each in their own bubble, each thinking that they are alone in caring about, well, anything, and that therefore nothing can be done.