There is no equivalence between advertising companies tracking what you browse and a government's ability to throw you in prison.

Today. Let's remember that this is an artifact of having strong governments and regulations.

There was much less difference between a government and a corporation if you happened to deal with the East India Company, or US worker towns of old.

The East India Company was a de facto arm of government; chartered as a state-protected monopoly. There’s plenty of examples of things that aren't formally states or formally linked to them taking advantage of weak or absent states to exert extreme power over people's lives (and plenty of examples of systems without a distinction between private power and public authority at all, e.g., feudalism), but the EIC isn't one of them.

The fact that you have to go hundreds of years in the past for your examples speaks volumes.

I hope you're not suggesting the east india company was anything other than a massive mistake..

There is always someone that takes the most egregious examples they can find and then say "well if don't have strong government this will happen" ignoring all proportion and scale to any of these matters and the current reality we live in.

It is simply a deflection from the central point that frequently the state will involve itself in things that it really shouldn't be involving itself in. This is frequenly because it must justify its ever increasing size. Saying that the state should have well defined responsibilities shouldn't be controversial. What those should be is a different conversation.

No it isn't a quaint idea. I am aware of the existence of shadow profiles and it doesn't invalidate the general point. Them having a shadow profile of me is an annoyance and is rather minor one at that.

However I have no such choice when it comes to Government. Whatever they choose to decide I have to abide by or face fines, jail and other reprocussions. Some of those decisions maybe just which aren't a problem. However some of them maybe unjust. If those decisions are unjust I have almost no direct way to address it especially if I am in the minority.