Touchy much? None of the little tricks or habits I listed above leads to a "marginal existence" or makes you a "hermit". They serve to cut out the middleman, o

Touchy much? None of the little tricks or habits I listed above leads to a "marginal existence" or makes you a "hermit". They serve to cut out the middleman, or to minimize my data trail, given that I still want the benefits of technology. Why should Google/Gmail be allowed to analyze my communications with my friends or colleagues, esp. if I'm not even using Gmail? Why should Netflix be allowed to record what I watch, when, and in what order? Why should Facebook be notified that I read article X, esp. since I am not even on their network?! What you said therefore makes no sense to me, it's a false dichotomy. And before you congratulate yourself publicly on your own "civic and human engagement", consider that even just ten years ago people managed to be engaged without apprising Google, Facebook, et al. about their every impulse, incessantly. Yes, you could watch a DVD, read a book, or talk to your parents and no Evil Corp. was silently adding that to its Stasi dossier about you and your predilections. Somehow life went on anyway, and nobody called you a "hermit, intellectually speaking" for that. Talk about resetting expectations, jeez…