Totally normal for a legitimate for-profit company to refuse to reclaim or stop running their products even after they're no longer being paid to do so. I'm sure it's very normal to just keep running your service for free when your contract's been terminated. Spending money to continue running cameras that supposedly no one is looking at is definitely not an indicator they are just run by the federal government to spy on everyone and only a wacko conspiracy theorist would think so.
you don't need a government conspiracy theory: the data is more valuable the more of it there is. it's basic network effects.
plus, there's no incentive to stop collecting it in City A even if they stop subscribing, because Cities B through Z are still subscribing and often trying to track people across state lines (such as people who travel for abortions).
it's evil as hell, it is definitely being abused by governments (such as for ICE), but it's just the extremely routine evil of capitalism.






















