So yes, you would have to look at laws to "fix" this, but you will find out that there is no way you will be able to get it passed in a democracy because almost no one wants to have to pay for social media, a web browser, search engines or other such commodity software.
But that’s not been the deal since the mid ‘00s. The deal is “ads, plus we build a model of you and rent access to that model for anyone who’ll pay, allowing them to manipulate your politics and world-view”.
That’s the deal. But they just call it “ads”.
> but you will find out that there is no way you will be able to get it passed in a democracy because almost no one wants to have to pay for social media, a web browser, search engines or other such commodity software.
I suspect that people do care about their data, their privacy and such. But tech is so hard, the effects so distant and the public’s ability to affect change so minimal that people guve in to the privacy breach. That’s quite different from “not caring”.
I admit, this is a hunch.
What the point of paying, when even a retail copy of the most common commercial OS still has ads for frickin' Candy Crush in the start menu? Not to mention an amount of telemetry that dwarfs what's described in OP's comic by multiple orders of magnitude? The best software is for free these days, any paid support is completely voluntary. Commercial software should be treated as abusive spyware unless it can prove otherwise.
Still this extra expense turns away a huge number of customers :(
But of course an ad-supported "free tier" is an easy way to try a service with zero obligations, and it will remain popular. Also, if for me $10/mo is not a big deal, for other folks this may be not so. Those who can't pay with money pay with what they've got, with attention and privacy. They might like to pay with money, but sometimes can't afford that. Count all the ad-supported free services you likely use (e.g. Google search, Twitter, Facebook,..), and at the rate at $10/mo they'd add up to a noticeable sum.
That fact along with the average piece of consumer software having such low perceived value (try getting people to spend 99p on the app store) and consumer software has become this awful race to the bottom of lock-in and advertising. I suspect business software is much healthier for this reason.
Economic pressures are why we've arrived here.
From the elite's point of view, the function of big tech companies nowadays is to keep the consuming masses in check. It doesn't matter if this means not executing anti-cartel laws.
Leave behind all the peeking at user data and dark business models, and just do and sell what you're good at? Make hardware and software that users (and companies) can trust and build on? Products that are not tethered by the manufacturer for business strategic reasons? Thanks.
If not, perhaps there should be laws. Because if the market starts working against the interest of the consumer, then we have a problem.