@anon82669666 God damnit you did it again!
On a serious note, it tends to be that news is negative. It just gets more attention that way and unfortunately it makes its way onto the forum. I think @Henry’s addition of weekly wins is amazing for counter-acting this effect as it reminds us of the small victories we make along the way.
I agree that the realization that everything can spy on you certainly isn’t calming, but I feel that this was important as we slowly become disillusioned with the big corpos telling us that everything is in our best interest. It also helps make us skeptical of whenever big tech tries to inject a new fad into our heads (imagine how the reception of Alexa would’ve been if people realized back then that Amazon was storing, scanning, and hearing everything that goes on in your house!)
I believe in a being a cautionary optimistic. I know that I am being spied on, I know that my data can get hacked and leaked. Therefore, I take whatever steps I can to mitigate what I feel are the most common threats (i know, threat modeling!), and leaving the rest to fate, because what am I really going to be able to do about everything? We will never be able to completely control our privacy in 2024 to a reasonable degree, therefore we do whatever makes us more private, and therefore less vulnerable, than 90% of people.
To quote Boondocks:
“Granddad, what do you do when you can’t do nothing, but there’s nothing you can do?”
“You do what you can.”