At this point, nearly every online service should be considered hostile. If they can make a small amount of money by compromising your privacy or your identity, they will. If they can make a small amount of money by stealing your attention and addicting you, they will.

Are there exceptions? I'm sure. Will I be erring sometimes by being cautious? Definitely. But, there is really not much of an alternative these days.

I have long wondered about the market size for privacy-focused apps. Sure, plenty of people don't know or don't care to value that, but if there are enough, maybe you could have a whole set of apps that emphasize they are not seeking world domination or selling out to the highest bidder, and a major selling point for using them would be that they are not < your expected chat/dating/photo/social site >.

Am I too idealistic? If such apps are not aggressively seeking hyper growth, it seems like these more trustworthy services could be deployed to cheap servers and let people use them for cheap without having to resort to selling user data.

> I have long wondered about the market size for privacy-focused apps.

The real problem is how to trust that a "privacy-focused" app is actually privacy-focused. You certainly can't take the publisher's word for it.

The only safe stance is to withhold as much personal information from as much software and services as possible.