The Privacy Paradox - Are You Guilty Too?

So this might seem like a stream of consciousness here, and I do apologize.

My philosophy in life is moderation is essential, and everything is going to kill you.

I'm prone to skin cancer; I had a mole removed at 14 that was cancerous, and they had to remove a huge chunk from my shoulder. Ever since, I have bathed in sunscreen when I go out, and I make sure to not be in direct sun when it is the strongest. Then we come to find out that sunscreen is cariogenic. Am I going to get cancer from the sun or the very thing meant to protect me? What am I going to do? Stay inside forever and not live? Not play in the backyard with my son? Heck no! I'm going to do what I can to moderate my sun exposure and live.

So for me, it is not a paradox at all. You always have to weigh the pros and cons of life.

I have always been a private person, controlling as much as possible on what I put out onto the internet. However, to start a business, I have to start putting out more than I'm used to. You can not live in a cave and run a business at the same time - or at least I don't know of anyone that has.

I like to believe that most people weigh out the pros and cons, and what seems to be a "trading for small gains" to us is a calculated decision for them. However, with John Stossel stating that he doesn't care about big tech knowing everything about him, I think a large part of the population doesn't care about privacy the way we do. Hopefully, that will change, and the market forces will start to drive companies and people to take privacy more seriously; the number of people opt-out of ad-tracking after the latest iOS update should be a glimmer of hope for that.

So, what can we do? What should we do? I think it just comes down to education and time, but we also have to understand times have changed and all we can do is try to bring the pendulum back to the center.