This sounds like hopeless defeatism.
In my lifetime I’ve seen plenty of great progress thanks to activism and yes, at times, protests. When I was in high school gay people could not get married, serve in the military, and largely stayed in the closet in their personal/professional lives. Now even a majority of Republicans support gay marriage and are happy to socialize with gay folks.
That is real change in a relatively short amount of time.
Privacy has gained enough traction already that VPNs are mainstream and big companies like Apple now offer E2EE messaging, video calling, and cloud services. There is always more than can be done, but we (privacy advocates) are winning even if slowly. That can only continue if advocacy continues.