i once got into a heated argument about online privacy, and they rebutted with the usual "well, if you are a good person, you have nothing to hide from companies!" which bothers me a ton
very long ramble:
now, im not a cybersecurity major, im an IT kid, im basically the person cybersecurity people point and laugh at while they read through my shoddy code looking for possible backdoors, HOWEVER, i am quite intrigued with the world of cybersecurity, and the lack of care many people have for it concerns me
if i broke into your home and started making copies of your personal information while claiming that "the info is safe with me, and that you dont need to worry if you're a good person", you'd probably would still call the authorities. and yet we dont really care much for when companies do this?
i get that for most of us, by this point, its a bit too late, and we have fallen into apathy for our own personal data. for example, the government of indonesia was hacked and ALL personal citizen data has been leaked, so by this point i really dont care about my online data anymore since its already out there anyways without my consent so why bother
however if you're not too deep into the rabbit hole, i suggest being more careful with what you want to use online
yes, companies CLAIM their information is safe with them, but thats just a claim. data breaches happen every time, and passwords get leaked often. i get that its nigh impossible to even try to do this, since 99% of sites WILL want to get your data, and you probably cant opt out, usually just for advertising, always just for advertising, nowadays also for AI
data scraping should be an opt in choice, not an opt out choice. but thats how capitalism goes nowadays i guess.
so what can we do to prevent this, or atleast minimalize this? its easy really, just dont put your eggs in one basket. dont put your data in ONLY large corporations
theres so much interesting things in the world of self hosting, whether its replacing your Drive or MEGA with a home NAS server, replacing your netflix with jellyfin, photo hosting with immich, ect. you could even replace everything with linux! but thats hard and complicated, and requires alot of commitment (IE, having a divorce with microsoft and try understanding linux), so start easy by replacing some apps with FOSS (Free and Open Source) apps instead!
not only are FOSS apps usually free, they also tend to have more support from the community due to the Open Source system. an obvious example being Blender and OBS. now granted, some FOSS apps have HORRIBLE workflows, like (probably a bad take) GIMP, because i swear to god i can understand paint.net more than i do GIMP
However, not all apps are like that, and some work better than others. really, you just need to start looking and searching for what might be the best option for you. i found this site while i was looking for more FOSS apps on android, so it might be useful for you too: https://offa.github.io/android-foss/
of course, nowadays in the age of surveillance, privacy is nigh impossible, or straight up nonexistent, however small acts like this can make you have just a bit more control on your own private information.
stay safe online, everyone