> If my government wants to know something about me, they will be able to find out and that's whether I use DuckDuckGo or Google, Chrome or Firefox, Facebook or

> If my government wants to know something about me, they will be able to find out and that's whether I use DuckDuckGo or Google, Chrome or Firefox, Facebook or no Facebook, Gmail or my own private server, and whether or not I use a VPN service. In the case of a targeted investigation, yeah, you're probably right. Thing is, that's not the only (or even most likely) threat unless you're some kind of wannabe DPR. Dragnet/geofence-style investigations are getting more common and while not using Google likely won't save you from the CIA, it may very well avoid your technically-incompetent local LEOs accidentally framing you for a bank robbery or something when you win the location-data lottery. But that's an individual-level argument, which imo isn't the main point - privacy is a societal-level good. > But I'm more interested in convenience. This is basically the "I have nothing to say, so I have no need for freedom of expression" argument transplanted into the privacy sphere. The effectiveness of privacy methods scale both technically and socially: an example on the technical front is how tor is more useful the more "normal" traffic ends up on it, and an example on the social front is how encrypted messaging capabilities aren't suspicious if they're integrated by default into widely used apps. So, I see privacy as less about me and more about participating in creating an environment where those who truly require it can have it, and that's something that's way harder if privacy is only conceived as being "for" dissidents or fetishists or whatever. Is it inconvenient sometimes? Sure, but it's also a civic duty. I'd honestly call it analogous to jury selection: quite possibly nothing but a burden to you personally, but an important part of maintaining a healthy society.