Characterizing all data collection as 'snooping' fits in well with the 'existential threat' narrative, but I don't believe data _collection_ to be the threat yo

Characterizing all data collection as 'snooping' fits in well with the 'existential threat' narrative, but I don't believe data _collection_ to be the threat you describe. Data misuse certainly is, but there's a distinction that needs to be made there, as I'm not fully convinced that the slippery slope of "collection must lead to misuse" needs to be a universal truth. Rather, I consider the _collection_ of broad data, carefully used, to be almost pre-requisite to the advancement of our species. Whenever I imagine future technologies they're all based on better use of data. "That car over there has a broken taillight - send them a message." "Pick me a movie I'll be interested in in this moment." Or data mining my personal history to make note of conversation topics I wanted to follow up on; promises I made in the moment. To some degree, society will (and already has) reset our privacy expectations; not everything we've held as protected need always be, at least in general. What we haven't done yet though is figure out how to enable useful collection and some level of relaxed privacy constraints without opening the door to potential abuse. Which is the risk I think you're worried about - it's not that Google is abusing the data they have _right now_, but that they eventually could, and that you find that risk more compelling than all the value they're delivering now. (Which, to be fair, I cannot say is incorrect). But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater - I want the promises of the future, and it's just a question of how we can safely get to them :).