Meanwhile if you use iCloud backups all your data is one subpoena away from law enforcement.
My point stands, apples revenue is not from privacy violating advertising and has no motivation for data collection beyond product improvement
[0]: https://dazeinfo.com/2018/10/01/apple-google-fee-iphone-sear...
Remember the fun we had making fun of Apple Maps? Why in the world would Apple have dropped Google as the back end for their original Maps program, right? Well, it was because back in 2011 or so, Google refused to give Apple access to true turn-by-turn navigation features unless Apple gave them more access to user data. Rather than do that, Apple decided to go it themselves, even though that made the Maps product worse for years. This is consistent with Apple's behavior in other fields. (Hey, Siri!)
There are a lot of criticisms to be made of Apple, but "they're selling your data by proxy" just doesn't seem to be one of them.
Vizio isn't the only one but here's an example: https://www.tomsguide.com/amp/us/vizio-ftc-smart-tv-spying-p...
How-to disable additional snooping: https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smar...
Mind you this goes above what most consumers would consider acceptable and can be blatantly sold to advertisers.
This is just what manufacturers have done but then there's just the attempts we know of by the CIA dump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20206536
It’s way too early for this to be a reasonable assumption. The fact that they made that comment implies they are aware how widespread the is.