For most people, they see how convenient services are, how good they are at recommending products you may want to buy, friends you may want to connect with, videos you may want to watch, etc. They perceive ads as payment for using these services. They see privacy popups and prompts as frustrating interferences.
They understand at some level that the companies are doing it deliberately, that they're making handing over your data as easy and convenient as possible and opting out as hard as possible; that those cookie prompts are incredibly obnoxious to coerce you into just clicking "Accept All". But human nature is human nature and people generally prefer the convenience.
That was the whole thrust of what Facebook was objecting too; they didn't want people to have a choice.
The problem is that they've been tricked into thinking 'ads' are the cost that they pay. The reality is that they'll be paying for the rest of their lives in ways they never thought were possible and with no way to back out.
The more people start to learn about how the data they've surrendered for a tiny bit of convenience is, and has been, being used against them they'll slowly come to realize that they've been ripped off and had no idea what they were giving up. They'll discover that they were lied to when they were told the services they enjoy couldn't exist without that sacrifice. By the time most of them catch on it'll be to late, but they'll certainly care then.
But if it inconveniences them, whether it's having to click through five menus to disallow cookies or having to use Firefox, most just won't bother.
People always say they care if you ask them, but if you look at their behaviors, almost nobody actually does. It's just a nice to have, not a necessity.
Agreeing with the above, an alternative take on the rest is that people will not choose privacy if it is expensive and difficult. This doesn’t mean that it’s not a necessity, just that they can’t afford it and/or can’t work out how to get it.
The organisations involved in invading end user privacy employ large numbers of psychologists to deliberately design things that make being privacy-conscious difficult (mentally taxing / expensive / path of most resistance). When the population at large is (unknowingly) fighting against an highly armed adversary, it feels uncharitable to claim that they don’t care.
We’re losing a war the vast majority don’t even realise is happening.
Watching Apple and Facebook duke it out was mildly entertaining, but at the end of the day, life went on without much difference.
I've had my Google account privacy turned way down for years because I found that recommendations were better when Google knew everything about me. I didn't mind giving Google all that data. What finally stopped me wasn't privacy concerns, but that all my trivial web searches started to leak into a redesigned Google News, leading to it becoming useless. I was sad, because I would rather they have implemented more controls over the feed algorithm rather than force me to turn off history-based recommendations. Guess they're taking a play out of tiktok's book?
For a decade, Google has known my precise location at all times, my browsing history, my weight, my heart rate, my emails and texts, my pictures... and you know what? Nothing much has happened. It wasn't a huge positive or negative.
Privacy just isn't a big deal day in and day out. Nobody has any today and somehow we're OK...
PEOPLE in general do not care, even if they claim to know about the tracking.
So no, abstractly trying to tell people they're being continually surveilled and trying to get them to care is not a useful indicator. Even if you could obtain and present the contents of their permanent records in a shocking way, there's a good chance they'd just react to the overwhelmingness with cognitive dissonance.
They don't care because they don't understand. It's not about 'ads'. the data they give up will increasingly be used against them in ways that matter greatly (like how much they pay for something vs their neighbor, or if they do or don't get offered a job) and in even the most mundane aspects of their life (like how long they wait on hold). If an occasional ad were the true cost they were paying for the fun they're having it wouldn't matter, but that's not the case. They'll be paying over and over for the rest of their lives as the data that's been collected is used against them by everyone who can leverage it for their own advantage.
Of course, none of them will actually take the leap and leave these platforms as I have, but I think people are willing to actually recognize these issues. Just depends on who they are. Maybe if you're talking with people you could talk about how this surveillance isn't just used for ads, that the data collected by advertisers is purchased by law enforcement agencies to circumvent legal requirements for warrants, that the police (in the US) with zero oversight can track your every movement via these databases, in open contravention of the spirit of the laws that "regulate" them.
Also, I think that the corpo line that surveillance results in "better" ads is simply untrue. I've heard so many people complain about irrelevant ads being served to them. I think there is a growing group of people who feel insulted by the shallow way they are typecast by these ads. A family member who is a carpenter who gets advertised consumerist "manly" products comes to mind. Because ultimately they are not serving you what you want, they are serving you what you are statistically most likely to click on. And at least most people I have asked, have never even clicked on an Instagram or Facebook ad. So the ads presented to "you" are really being presented to a consumerist ad-clicker alternate reality version of you, it is a fundamental disconnect. I think the value advertisers gain from increased "engagement" on ads is increasingly being paid for in the form of alienation of the kinds of people who will simply never respond to this kind of advertising.