Yes, I remember seeing some tweets from people reporting all the crazy information FB had stored about them. I mean, we all knew they spied on people, but not as hardcore as that.

What worries me a little bit is that I don't see this issue being properly discussed except for a few places (like steem), I mean, regular internet users (or blokes as you said haha) aren't aware of this, or they simply don't care about it. I suppose this could change slowly with time...

I firmly believe that five years from now, platforms that don’t pay their users anything and only abuse their interaction will become obsolete

I hope this ends up being true man, the concept of Steem is simply superior and it should take over if given enough time, there is simply no person that would prefer to be spied on instead of being rewarded for their content.