alt Hacker NewsFinance follows the risks and the users.
We'll probably never convince end-users to "vote with their feet" and use Privacy-focused products. But we can absolutely, through legislation or just precedent, raise the Risk profile until it's better to leave the ad revenue on the table and run a private service.
Finance follows money.
Turns out that money never was a good proxy for the public good, or even the ‘good’ of paying users. The goal has never been maximizing UX, the goal always was squeezing profits.
End-users not voting with their feet is misrepresenting the issue, it’s a symptom of end-users being actively lied to during campaigns (I think the euphemism for that is “lobby groups”).
Why? Because politicians care about being re-elected and their approval rates, and finance has proved to be an unnaturally large factor in that equation.