A very common pattern of discussion is Nerd being a nerd: Foo is terrible for privacy! Nerd trying to look non-nerdy: Nerds say this, but ordinary people don'

A very common pattern of discussion is Nerd being a nerd: Foo is terrible for privacy! Nerd trying to look non-nerdy: Nerds say this, but ordinary people don't care! So Foo will win, get used to it. This scandal however, makes it seem more like ordinary people would care, except they don't know about the terribleness of Foo. Actually I think the it's a confusing mishmash of the two. People don't learn about stuff because they don't care. And its rational not to care about something if there isn't something you can do about it. But when a scandal like this hits, more people decide to care because "join the bandwagon of protest" becomes a thing you can do. And that makes more people know about it, which make the potential bandwagon bigger, etc.