There isn't as much difference between the West and East as one might imagine. Westerners claim they want privacy, but see no problem giving it away for shinier

There isn't as much difference between the West and East as one might imagine. Westerners claim they want privacy, but see no problem giving it away for shinier toys. If you want privacy, it can be had, both in the East and West, you simply have to pay for it. Or learn how technology works and prioritize it. I moved off of Windows decades ago, OSX years ago, and am slowly tightening up all aspects of my digital life, for power, convenience, and yes, privacy. Privacy is a luxury good like everything else humans want. Available for the masses only if you're willing to spend the time and energy learning how to DIY, or can just be bought if you're rich. It was a weird experience today watching Apple's announcement video. Everything there is designed to keep you locked into their platform, and it was amusing when I saw how machine learning on your phone was given such significant space. They didn't even try to claim that this would help out ordinary people, jumping immediately to reducing costs of very very deep-pocketed customers, medical device manufacturers. Oh but an AR bird will know where your hand is maybe a bit better too. :rolleyes: I mean, that's Apple's market, along with "pro" users, with the HomePod tech being a sad afterthought, a bone tossed to the less-than-extremely-well-heeled users as an alternative to mass-market Amazon devices. America has a cult of the big and flashy, and the engine runs on our data so companies can predict and influence the behavior of the masses. Predictable revenue flows are the name of the game. China's government just has an added incentive to bake it all right into the social fabric. That's all.