Not on a social networking site? Don't worry, they probably know a significant amount about you anyway, just from friends who have given the social network the entire address book from their phone and a few photos with you in them.
Decided not to use Google because you're not sure about how much data they collect these days? Don't worry, they probably have a significant proportion of all the e-mails you ever send from one of the other parties anyway, and you have no reliable way to determine when this is happening or to avoid participating.
And of course there are the numerous third party widgets that not only make the modern web a slower, sometimes malware-ridden, often ad-ridden mess, they also follow those not technically skilled enough to protect themselves around. Don't worry, they promise they won't tell your health insurer about the medical conditions you were looking up. No, wait, they didn't.
Now we have the kinds of technologies mentioned in the parent post, with smartphones and headsets and home automation systems that have sensors and network connections being placed just about everywhere, and we really are starting to live in a society with permanent surveillance.
In many ways, these kinds of issues are much harder to address than the already difficult questions of how to control first party data collection. Most of them by their nature operate in the background where a lot of people will never even know they are there, and even those who do may or may not be able to do much about it.
Social conventions would not/do not work as much as we would like.
Apple improves their products for several reasons, but as a for-profit business the main reason they would use some of their limited capital to "improve their product" would be to make money.
The details about how a business exploits user data is not that interesting. Arguments about this kind of minutia are a distraction and a waste of time. The problem is, as you say, the fact that they collect data at all.
> That means gimped Siri
As Dan Geer said regarding the inevitable software-industry complains about liability legislation
Some people may wish to trade their future privacy for whatever clever trinket is being sold. I believe that is usually a bad trade, but they have the right to make that kind of choice. What is not being discussed is how the people that use Siri (and similar live-microphone-with-network-access products, including newer "smart TVs") are making that privacy decision not only for themselves, but they are also imposing their choice on everybody else the microphone can hear.In his recent (highly recommended) talk[1], Aral Balkan suggested a very interesting model, because there is another product that is well-known to adversely impact the people "near" the user as a secondary effect: tobacco. Siri, Amazon's Echo, and most of Google's services are like software "second-hand smoke". Like smoking, I don't care what you do in your own home. What we need - at a minimum - is new social conventions/etiquette where you ask permission or step outside before enabling any of these recording devices.
[1] https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...