> Most people don't realize how bad all sorts of things in their life are.

I'd say that most people are regularly bombarded by all these issues in the medias. If they still don't realize, then this is because they actively filter them out.

> If you think things in the world should only change because of popular opinion & sales, then things like emancipation, environmental protection, worker protection, consumer protection laws, and other such things would never have happened.

I never claimed that things shouldn't change, only that I very much doubt they will. It's on the opponents to Google/Apple, to convince the majority that there are real issues and that measures should be taken. That's how democracy works, right? And I don't see that happening in the near future. Privacy? We have nothing to hide. Low-level customizability? We only need something that just works. They are the popular answers on these issues that need to be countered.

Most people I talk to have a sense that all of these big companies (and the government) are violating them, but they feel completely helpless and so ignore the issue. It's extremely similar to people in a third world country that know their foods are being adulterated but can't afford imports and still have to shop.

The majority of users are not tech aware security engineers. The majority of users (myself included) don't want to spend hours of our lives effectively specializing in android/ios under the hood design, and/or browsing shady blogs and forums looking for ways to root our phones.

Don't underestimate the domain knowledge that you've acquired, and the amount necessary to root a phone, let alone take control of linux embedded in a television. It's about more than just not knowing that we're being spied on. It simply isn't efficient to expect so many people, who have already specialized according to their professions and interests, to also take on this level of domain specific knowledge.