Privacy Friendly Apps – improved privacy protection on the smartphone

This is untrue and the only place I see people claiming it's true (ironically) is here on HN. Privacy is intentionally made as difficult as possible when using anything where control could conceivably be centralized. These services are also made crucial through the elimination of others that are more privacy-respecting. In the case of the internet, this is inevitable because internet business don't have to make a profit, and they destroy the previous businesses that did.

I don't meet anyone who doesn't want privacy as the default. It's weird to even have to say that when Snapchat is winning among the generations that get most accused of being comfortable with this corporate and government-imposed lack of privacy.

This is the key. And privacy, the lack thereof, and what to do about it - is significantly harder to grok in 2022 than your standard education coursework.

Any material that attempts to educate and empower users on this subject should be encouraged.

Markets change when consumers demand it. Until consumers know what to demand and why they should demand it, change will not happen.

Not long ago, smart homes were reserved for tinkerers and tech savvy types. Now, almost anyone can set up some smart bulbs and such.

Staying private is in that earlier stage. Every product or movement that became accessible to the masses started out as an inaccessible or impractical hobby of a few.

> I don't meet anyone who doesn't want privacy as the default.

We're both speaking from experience. You can't claim that my experience is untrue, just as I can't claim that yours is.

Most people I've spoken to--particularly outside of HN--in the baby boomer and generation X demographics, and even some millennials, have expressed what I said above. Practically speaking, almost anyone who is not technically savvy certainly wouldn't be concerned about protecting their online privacy, since the internet (or "Facebook") is just a tool they use to stay in touch and keep (mis)informed.

As more and more people come online their first exposure to the internet will be via these services. The failure of web developers has been not building privacy-focused tools from the beginning, and not educating people about what they're sacrificing by using "free" services. We can work on the latter, but the former will always be an uphill battle, as the momentum of adtech has taken over the web.

> Snapchat is winning among the generations that get most accused of being comfortable with this corporate and government-imposed lack of privacy

What makes you think Snapchat respects users' privacy? Snap is an opaque corporation, running a profitable ad-based business, like most tech giants.

I'd reckon that most Snapchat users don't use it because they think it's private, but because it has the content they're interested in. This is the same demographic obsessed with TikTok after all.

I used to think the same way, and started out writing all my educational pieces in the vernacular structure... with great patience and sensitivity to the idea that maybe some people are ambivalent about privacy.

Over the years I've come to revise that.

We create mythologies in the hacker community. Amongst the many caricatures we conjure up are "Mom", "Gran" and someones "Little brother". These hopeless half-wits will set a computer on fire as soon as touch it. The reality is that todays "Granny" was head of social informatics at IBM in the 1960s. Todays "Mom" is ferociously aware of protecting her children, eschews 'nanny cams' and gets irate at the school for posting the class photo on Facebook.

We need to revise our stereotypes and should seriously ask; who are these imaginary people who are "reading this for the first time"?

Part of the reason I think we create these mythological half-wits is that it gives us a simple explanation as to why the uptake of dignity respecting technology is slow. The reality is that it's actively impeded, but we're not quite ready to fully take that on-board and point at the culprits.

Part of the solution I think is to adopt more direct speech, to stop treading on eggshells around privacy and start going in hard with a more mature understanding of where people are in 2022 with respect to their threat models around different technologies. Regular people get that the horsemen of the infopocalypse are bogus, that their phones are fundamentally insecure, and they want change.

> If it's complicated and normies [1] can't do it, that can't be helped

We do need to up the game in so many places, as you say, education and UI are still paramount.

> You might be upset by that fact, and therefore support and amplify criticisms of the current regimes, software that simplifies the process, and/or legislation to protect people.

You raise a really important issue. There's a lot of hostility towards advocates of rights respecting technology. I always assumed that came, at least here in forums like HN, from those directly involved in advertising and surveillance activities who see their livelihood threatened. But now I think there's more to it. I get about eighty percent very positive sentiment toward my Digital Vegan book, ten percent justifiably critical, but there's ten percent who are disproportionately angered and indignant.

I think the psychology is really complex and involves a kind of defensive rationalisation, learned helplessness, Stockholm syndrome and some sunk-cost bias. Some will vigorously shout down opponents in defending their right to be spied on and abused. Something's amiss there.

[1] sorry I used that word, it's demeaning

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/sensors/sensors_m...