This exactly. Trying to live outside the collection is very difficult. A few years ago non-smart phones became untenable for use in basic civil society. More

This exactly. Trying to live outside the collection is very difficult. A few years ago non-smart phones became untenable for use in basic civil society. More recently, an older smart phone or without face/touch enabled became hard to use. Recently, in cities like NY, due to QR-ification, going out without a smart phone meant issues getting menus. Now, the big ones are starting: end of cash, and civil life tracking. The NYC oyster-card equivalent for subways is per-user and sells data, per the ToS. The tap-to-pay subway turnstiles log per-station use (and therefore your travel) for your credit card provider. Many restaurants can’t do cash easily bc the proliferation of Square and what overworked civil servant is going to force mom and pop coffee shops to take cash? The laws on this got hazy a while back anyway. TSA/clearcheck or w/e in airports that use biometrics. Opt out options, besides being inconvenient, label you as what to the TSA? Drivers license photos are auto-sold to CBP facial rec tools and similar. Where is the opt out for that? This isn’t conspiratorial. it’s just the slow march of clever tech that works well so people who don’t understand the privacy tradeoffs or don’t care buy it, the purchase defines network effects which defines implied user preferences which defines new product choices which defines larger networks… which becomes more and more difficult to opt out of. If you claim this isn’t happening you don’t understand data eng and tech as a whole. The only thing saving us rn is the data eng part is really hard still.