I think you need to realise just what the gov are up to. You only have to watch Ed Snowden with Joe Rogan Experience and he explains, every bad thing starts with the gov and the whole "you can vote them out" is actually incorrect to a certain extent.
Please go check out that interview and realise how corrupt and bad Gov's are.
At least with companies they have to adhere to their market place otherwise we stop giving them money, doesn't work that way with Gov. Don't like a Gov handles a certain thing, you have to move.
I believe you are the one that has to realize what the government is up to. I read a ton of stuff both published about and from the government. You need to understand how government agencies, especially our intel and law enforcement, were being weaponized by past administrations to spy on and attack both political and regular US citizens. That is aside from regulatory agencies extending the public laws to mean whatever they want them to mean without repurcussions. This is not saying the imbedded bureaucrats in the same agencies are not trying to continue now, but much more daylight is penetrating into the recesses under our current administration and some of the more free press. None of that would occur without a free people changing their government by vote. This does not occur in private companies. Try changing or even suggesting Google (etc) or Microsoft should stop spying and selling your attention or face regulatory and/or legal action. The purchase of Congressionals at federal and local levels is as fun to watch as tossing meat in in a pool of piranha.
As for companies "...have to adhere to their marketplace...", that is based on a company making or building or providing a tangible product not stolen (and yes email, online storage, and digital media are tangible products in our new world). Your attention is a tangible product and has been so. Madison Avenue used to control and use specific psychological tricks to sell your attention. Psychological marketing is a college speciality and conscious-unconscious mechanisms to divert and change your thought processes to 'buy buy buy' are in use daily at large stores, especially food stores. (CBC Canada has some "exposes" on the subject for the uninitiated to watch) Google and the remainder are doing the same online and there is no 'just don't shop there' if you object.
My objections to Google (et al) remains. I don't want anything from them from advertising to security checking to validating whether I'm human. Yet I can't vote them out or avoid them because of their almost total penetration and alteration of the US privacy landscape and their wanton purchase of any competition. We did make changes to the excesses of the previous government by voting and those changes are resulting in less oppression right now. There will be changes to the tech controls of your attention, hopefully, shortly. You should take a hard hard look at the differences and the required controls and understand your real power of the vote.
My personal opinion is that Snowden was and is a traitor and should be shot after appropriate trial. In spite of our laws protecting his rights, he cannot undo and the public source of jurors cannot unsee his own admissions of guilt. He may apply for and attempt to get 'whistleblower' status, but that is just to protect his job and pay. Otherwise, you would do well to choose another 'hero'. I like Joe Rogan but I don't alway agree with him. As for what happened to Snowden, take a look at what happened to the Tea Party, cattle ranchers in the west, people that bought dry land and had that 'dry' status overturned, coal ash, mine waste, and on and on (yes that's both sides of government control). The government was not and is not fair. Neither are the techs. But we still have the ability to effect change in the government. We need to have the ability to effect change in the techs.
