I'd say that there's a weird dependence between your two points; people often seem to care because there is an alternative. Examples of this might be Fair Trad

I'd say that there's a weird dependence between your two points; people often seem to care because there is an alternative. Examples of this might be Fair Trade coffee, or energy saving light bulbs. Prior to their marketing, I doubt that vague ethical considerations were on the 'top 10' list of consumer wants from a new product, if they registered at all. But when people are presented with a choice, if you can, why not get the better stuff? Another analogy might be something like the TPM chips on iPhones. I very much doubt that focus groups or surveys at Apple found TPMs in the list of requested new features. However, things like TPMs get written up, and add to the things that journalists can describe around the vague theme of relative security and relative privacy; important concepts to consumers. Once this is internalized, when making a comparison between phones, a motivated consumer might consider the absence of a TPM a problem. I doubt that Intel would start marketing _No Backdoor™_ chips, but I could imagine a consumer-facing hardware vendor coming up with some kind of comparison-based branding for avoiding the ME. There's a reasonable chance that Apple may continue to integrate vertically and get away from Intel over the next few years. And I was extremely surprised that Purism (a company basically founded on resentment towards the ME) could crowd-fund millions of dollars in the way it has.