Even if it weren't free companies would likely have moved towards collecting data. Just look at how the price tag of cars doesn't protect you from not being a product.
I don’t think that’s a very fair assessment. We are a lot more aware of what “free“ is now. We weren’t informed consumers and collectively are relatively more so these days, even if most people still choose to ignore the issue. Back then we didn’t know there was an issue. I know I sure didn’t know I was agreeing to let them scan my inbox.
I also think more than ever people are now questioning what free means. So I’m not really sure how one can argue we are conditioned to accept the price of “free” when more than ever people are questioning it and adopting things like VPNs and adblockers to reassert their privacy.
Reminder that 25% of Americans use an ad blocker, constituting the largest consumer boycott in history. It’s such a big problem that Google has been actively trying to thwart it. That doesn’t seem like conditioned (in their favor) behavior if you ask me.
I'll blame the early internet. So often stuff was for free, either due to the dot com bubble or just because someone wanted to create something.
More often than not the second one.
I mean, there were pages full of flash video games and animations with that sole purpose, no ulterior intentions.
When google came around, it too seemed amother neat free thing.
And the company came under fire again in 2018 after The Wall Street Journal revealed it was allowing third-party developers to trawl users’ Gmail inboxes, to which Google responded by reminding users it was within their power to grant and revoke those permissions.
So you can remove those permissions, just that it's enabled by default. Shitty design, but it's not mandatory to enable those, just like how you are not forced to use edge when you get a Windows computer.
You kind of are forced to use Edge though. There are certain functions via which Edge and only Edge will always launch. F1, the help button, is bound to a function that launches Edge anywhere in Windows Explorer, so you have a hotkey that cannot be rebound ready to pop Edge into your face at any time if you happen to fat-finger it.
The only way you can prevent it from launching Edge is either to intercept the keystroke with AHK or similar, or remove Edge in an unsanctioned manner that requires deep system fuckery. There are other links within the system settings dialogues that do this too.
