"Happy to" is quite a stretch. Being forced into having your privacy invaded due to economic circumstances does not make such practices acceptable.
If all the privacy-violating companies go out of business, there will be plenty of underserved customers for companies with more legitimate business models.
A lot of people simply don't care about "having your privacy invaded". I've yet to be convinced, and I'm even a technical person.
Even the words words "privacy" and "invaded" are such loaded and ambiguous language, I don't see how smart tech people are playing along with it as if it's some sort of innate human right in the electronic sense. You have to convince us, you don't get to just skip a few steps and tell us we're all crazy plebs that don't understand the implications of this thing you decided has to be the case. Hence the comment about this attitude being privileged (elitist).
No, I don't think so. I think most people would choose to pay with info rather than cash even if they have the cash simply because they don't fully grasp the actual cost to them. People make foolish (from my perspective) economic decisions all the time. I am currently traveling in the American south where I am surrounded by shockingly vast numbers of morbidly obese people who willingly trade their health for a sugar rush. No one is holding a gun to these people's heads and forcing them to drink sugary soda and eat fried food, but they do it anyway. They do it because they like it, and because they don't think about (or don't care about) the long-term consequences. People are (again, from my perspective) stupid. But I don't think it should be the role of government to save people from their own stupidity. That is a very slippery slope.
> They do it because they like it, and because they don't think about (or don't care about) the long-term consequences. People are (again, from my perspective) stupid.
Another reason for this is addiction. Addiction has people doing things that aren’t in their best interest despite them being otherwise intelligent humans.
People get the choice all the time with loyalty and reward points cards. It's pretty much a unique identifier that people carry in their pockets and handover willingly every time they make a purchase. It's more obvious and in-your-face sure, but the principle is the same and they have the choice.
Personally, I handover all my fitness information, driving habit information, spending and banking and investing information, my health information, even my location data, my STD statuses, etc to a company so I can get massive discounts on a bunch of stuff in various ways. It alters my behavior in a good way, it alters other peoples' behavior too, and I'm all the more happier about it. I much prefer this over stupid things like sin taxes, consumption taxes and laws that most people don't stick to or agree with (talk about choice and consent, huh).
People also chose to use Netflix or Steam (and other streaming platforms) instead of pirating. Last one would (and still is) be free. So it's not unprecedented.
If all the privacy-violating companies go out of business, there will be plenty of underserved customers for companies with more legitimate business models.