I think this starts to get at it, but missed the lopsided situation we're in today. In the small town he mentions, yes, there's little privacy, but it's constr

I think this starts to get at it, but missed the lopsided situation we're in today. In the small town he mentions, yes, there's little privacy, but it's constrained to the small town, and largely equal. Everyone knows about everyone. If someone from outside showed up to ask questions the town would likely protect your privacy, but also let you know someone was asking questions. Instead today there are corporations (some public, some very secretive) gathering vast amounts of information and it's impossible to know who knows what about you. That information is also much more easily tradable, so it spreads. For example, in the small town, pre-IT, it was hard to produce consolidated, and deep reporting of who's buying what, beyond the memory of the staff. Now Target, Amazon, etc can know not just what you're buying, but what you're looking at, and correlate it with information from other sources, and it can be easily correlated with public records, and other information on a scale that's just wasn't ever possible historically.