64% would be uncomfortable with companies sharing their personal data with outside groups doing research that "might help them improve society", which is great because it shows people understand that such phrases aren't just about sitting around and singing kumbaya.
[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-an...
IMHO "would be uncomfortable" is not a strong opinion. "Oppose and actively seek to prevent" is a strong opinion. In my experience the majority just have a sense of learned helplessness.
People are usually quite interested to learn about ways to can work against the dystopia to some degree. For a specific example I've converted numerous of people to Brave users just by demoing the ad-block and privacy features. People who have never used ad-block are often in borderline disbelief. Not once has a person ever been like 'oh why bother.' That is just literally unbelievable.
That's one out of dozens though. Most people are thrilled by the improved experience.
True, but I am not sure it is even that many people.
This whole narrative is strongly driven by Apple themselves, one of their strategies against regulations like the EU Digital Markets Act is to rally its userbase against the EU.
They figured out that much of the population is easily manipulated and controlled by exploiting their desire for "safety and security" --- in stark contrast to that classic Franklin quote (yes, I know the context isn't the same, but the words are otherwise a perfect fit for the situation.) It's only a minority of the population; and I'd suspect a smaller minority in the EU than the US; which is willing to argue against it.
Next time you find yourself arguing for something or doing things a certain way, throw in an "it's better for security" or similar phrase with a plausible-sounding argument why, and see how easily it shuts down the opposition. In my experience, many won't even question it.
The smartphone was a closed ecosystem from the start, tinkering around was an uphill battle fought with custom ROMs that only few users dared to try (if the bootloader wasn't locked down to begin with). Adding more restrictions didn't have much impact on most users.
Even activists can get exhausted
same idea has been pushed since forever(you can include ACTA and other copyright protectionist movements like that as its originators too) over and over again.
People need to protest all the time and win, legislators can just keep pushing it over and over again.
What's even worse you get really smart people seeing noting wrong with this.. Meanwhile this reeks of same methods that were used in my country under communist regime.