The Model T was introduced in 1908. Seat belts became law in 1968.

Asbestos was first mined in 2400BC, known to kill miners in 100AD, recognized as toxic by the US government in 1918, linked to cancer in 1934 and was finally under attempted ban in 1989. Which was, of course, overturned in 1991.

DDT was introduced in the 1940s, was killing birds in the '50s, made Silent Spring in 1962 and wasn't banned until 1972.

Historically speaking we have always lived in an era of open and almost unopposed oligarchy but no matter how jaded your viewpoint on humanity, you have to recognize that most large oligarchs and corporations don't go out of their way to fuck people over. They rarely go out of their way to help people, either but dumb shit like "wow barcodes are so easy to read you can pick one off of an Instagram post" is a political failure, not an economic one.

Let's put the PC clone as the Model T in this analogy. Here's where our digital savvy is right now:

If instead you put the model T at the introduction of social networks, we're here:

And yes, that is a model T, which sold with little modification from 1908 to 1927.

This gets better when government regulation clamps down HARDER than any historic analogy because we're in such uncharted territory that we don't even know what to protect ourselves from. Which, I think we both agree, is unlikely. But hey - let's pretend you're a UX coder at a 500-person firm making APIs for travel agencies. Security is not your bag, and shouldn't be. You're likely going to grab all the information you're given and put it somewhere so that others can use it. Security? They're going to make sure that they aren't giving up any information that hasn't already been given up. And the ticketing barcode? That's FAA, TSA, and Interpol-approved. The problem is, at the time the regulations came through there wasn't an attractive nuisance making people post their personal info online for made-up internet points. And the problem is, the government has been doing a bang-up job of publicizing "you are not your barcode" so that we don't mutter "Orwell" under our breaths every third minute.

Cockups before conspiracy, laddie. Cockups before conspiracy.