Watch "The Social Dilemma" carefully, and you will understand it.

The problem with Big Tech is not that they "selling your data". This wouldn't be that profitable to them. The problem is that they make more money by having tons of users and being able to build really accurate consumer behavior models, which then can be used to be used as a way to change mass behavior.

The most direct way is of course by having hyper targeted advertising, but this also affects people in many other ways in ways that are not to the benefit of the user: consider how the applications are designed to maximize engagement instead of being made to help users directly achieve their goals.

When you are the one paying for the service, companies succeed when they serve you better, and the money they can get from you directly is order of magnitudes more than what they'd get by trying to monetize your attention indirectly.

When you're the paying customer, it's possible (but not guaranteed) that they could see privacy as product differentiation.

In other words, if company A and B both offer you a product for $N, but A protects your privacy better than B, then A might get more customers. This competitive advantage can be an incentive for privacy.

However, there definitely limitations. If the value of this competitive advantage is less than the revenue they make by selling your data, then it's not a strong enough incentive. It also only works if consumers care about privacy and take the time to factor it into their purchasing decision.

With a free service it's given because they have to monetize end of the day. For paid services different businesses will have different strategies. Some have a solid business model and are content with it, some want to differentiate themselves using privacy, some simply don't want to take the reputation risk that comes with moves like this. Will there be some sleazy bastards who take your money and your data (cough cough gith*)? Sure, but they will get found out eventually and astute people will be able to steer away.

If it's impossible for you to be profitable without abusing your users in some way, then of course you're going to do so.

If it is possible for you to respect your users, then at least better behavior remains on the table.

That’s where being open-source is the hedge. I’m paying for your service and you still fuck me over, I have the option to self host. You start open-source and then start making the product worse? I’m forking and maintaining the old version.

So never bother with anything, am I right? Anything could be bad. Why eat the burger instead of the cyanide pill when there could be cyanide in the burger?