But so what?

This gets brought up all of the time- Google knows your porn habits, facebook knows what you're buying. Who gives a shit? Do you think for one iota of a second that Google cares about you? Sure, it loves having data on you and it needs your data in a "part of the masses" kind of way, but it's not the same as a coworker having everyone's dirty secrets because Google just doesn't care about the individual's secrets. Google's not gonna blackmail you that you look at dirty porn because that's a fucking terrible business move for Google.

And the same complaints come part-in-parcel with the excuse that there's nothing we can do about it because digital living is too pervasive. Grow up! There's nothing you can do about it because the benefit that these services add to your life are millions and millions of times better than the price they make you pay. If someone in the mid 90s said that in exchange for your IP address and your name they would do all of your research for you, you would have made thousands on that deal in time saved. Maybe more! And you would have taken it in a hearbeat.

I'm sick of people acting like surveillance comes from evil and is used only for it. The ways in which all of these things have saved you, personally and the author, time, money and stress is unfathomable.