The only problem with that theory is that Apple is a much older company stemming from the days that the only way to make money was to sell things to consumers. Nearly all of that company's infrastructure and inertia has always been that way. They may be opportunistically touting privacy now like they're doing us a favor (and they kinda are...), but the main favor they did was simply never commit massive resources to a pivot to data-driven services. iAd, for example, was basically a "me too!" way of creating revenue for early iOS app devs (because Google's Android was the only competition in that market).

For all of the other companies mentioned: data was basically their only asset and business model, and they were started 25+ years after Apple.

(Edit for grammar)