This form of data collection and use has broken a status quo that has existed as long as life itself. Shouldn't it more conventionally be the ones in favour of this change to provide evidence of its benefits rather than the other way around?
They already did. People vote with their feet and attention, and people continue to flock to free services powered by targeted ads, systematically out competing services that had other models. If you don't like these services, don't use them; they don't have subpoena power. However, you might find the other options to be lacking, because they have inferior business models that do not allow them to compete on product quality.
Not all cards were on the table back then when. The general public and perhaps even Google and such themselves didn't really know what they were getting into or where this was headed - at least not today's scale, ubiquitousness, or invasiveness. Hence I would argue that this contract or trade of sorts was not a conscious choice.
By the way, for what its worth, I really do appreciate all the time and effort you are spending on this discussion and the defence of your stance in it.
People continue to flock to new, free, targeted ads powered platforms. Look at the enormous growth of TikTok in the US; it has exploded well after the discussion on targeted advertising entered the American zeitgeist (Cambridge Analytica happened in 2018). In light of this, I don't think you can argue that Americans would have chosen something different if they knew more about targeted ads -- they are still, to this day, choosing to join free targeted ad platforms because they like using apps with that business model even when the app is effectively controlled by a foreign power.
I appreciate your kind words. I think people tend to be pretty myopic about targeted ads ("I don't like them/find them creepy") and fail to reason about all the positive things they are getting because of them, and as a consequence they fail to suggest alternatives that are actually better for the general population.
I think it's sad, because a huge amount of good for humanity has come out of Google search and other Google products being free to access while generating enough revenue to truly innovate for 20+ years. It didn't have to be this way, and one can easily imagine a world where Google was paywalled behind institution licenses, limiting its access to only powerful companies and wealthy universities. That world would be so much worse for all of us, and it was avoided because Google found the ads business model. People are now attacking that model but aren't suggesting truly viable alternatives (Google's biz dev is hard at work trying to crack this nut as well).
