I remember that story about Zachary McCoy. This whole thing continues to get worse quick and will continue to get worse. I know people say we need legislation and regulation on data privacy and tech companies which we do. But before that gets taken seriously (at least in the US) it's going to take something real scandalous done by tech companies and actually affect the common folk where they actually start to care. R…
The constant focus on the majority of web users, i.e., "the average user", is misplaced and suffers from an incorrect assumption. Namely, that a majority of the public needs to support some law before it can be passed by a legislature.
Most legislation does not come from mass outpouring of support by the public, like the kind "HN/Reddit/other tech/Geek forum" comments call for. It comes from lobbying, usually professional, and sometimes community activism. The same "niche" groups that people in the these forums like to downplay are not necessarily much smaller and may even be larger than groups who have successfully gotten laws passed at state and federal levels. What is necessary is some number of people who do understand the issues to initiate the lobbying and campaigning; the awareness and support of the "average constituent" is never a prerequisite. Nor is it true that every law passed serves an enormous number of constituents, i.e., "the average constituent". Sometimes laws only serve small groups of people who have special needs (or wants).
The notion of the "average user" really has no bearing on whether legislation is passed or not. What matters is the small group of people who are driving the campaign to have legislation passed. That group is unlikely to comprise the "average user", its going to be people who understand the issues to which the proposed law is targeted and can articulate them to people who know how to work the system to get laws passed.
The more middlemen people accept when using the internet, the more parties that can be subpoenaed. Those are the consequences of "cloud computing" and "SaaS". But to think that no law can be passed to address the harms that "tech" companies present, because the "average user" does not understand these problems, makes no sense. Stop focusing on "the average user". Thats for the "tech" companies to do. For the non-average users, its a waste of time.