> But if people were informed, that would create a market for privacy.

If people really cared, then that market would exist today. "Get your $5/mo. much more private email from privateemail.com!!". This notional private email provider would be able to advertise Outlook.com, GMail, etc.'s privacy policies independently of those email providers to ensure that "click through" isn't the only reason people are unaware.

That market does exist today, Fastmail.fm is only one example I can think of off the top of my head (I surely got the ofs and offs wrong). I talk about them so much that I sometimes feel like a marketing goon ...

They're not a viable privacy option. And it has little to do with their ethics: they are still vulnerable to subpoenas, many of their users don't even live in the same country…

The only viable privacy option is to host your mail at home. It doesn't have to be difficult. We "just" need a suitably tailored GNU/Linux distribution in a Sheeva Plug, or Raspberry Pi, that you just plug-in, then use as a web service. (Just one snag: your ISP must allow you to send and receive e-mail: many close off port 25, and some even ban home servers.)

Now to get your email, they need a search warrant and someone to knock on your door, which is inconvenient and costly.

Could you host your mail on a VPN instead? I wouldn't mind doing this except for the fact that I'm 100% certain I'd get something wrong.

This makes you too vulnerable to various DOS attacks though.

I care, but there's no way for me to state that I do not want my correspondence shared with Google/Microsoft ... so the people who don't care continue to drag the rest of us into the void.

I'm sorry, i've heard this argument for 15 years, and it's still as false now as it was then. It's really just staunch privacy advocates thinking that their position is really right, and everyone would see the light if only they could be educated. Everyone likes to think this about their position. It's not limited to privacy contexts.

Your problem is not education. Your problem is your position is just a marginal one. Sad in some ways, but true.

The truth is, people have bigger fish to fry than this, and like a lot of things, they like to talk about some stuff, but when push comes to shove, "privacy" is just nowhere on the list of priorities, educated about it or not. The market would already exist otherwise.