All of this comes down to trust. We trust our banks and credit card companies. They trust Equifax. Equifax's customer is your bank or credit lending company, not us. It's actually very similar to Google, et al. We aren't the consumer. They collect our personal information, vastly more than credit agencies. And the real customer are the advertisers who pay Google. The difference is, we probably trust Google more than Equifax (even before all of this).
A month ago, my mom said she wanted to start using Uber on her phone. I explained how to install it, and when she did (as well as the Lyft app for that matter) it wanted access to her camera, photos, contacts, a list of information on her phone. And she said fuck no. And refused to give permission. So she still uses cabs and pays cash.