Americans “just” want very few things, everything else is up to the seller to create a good story for. This is not a “failure” of Americans to want the right things, especially something as abstract and removed from essential needs like food and water, but a failure for those of us who understand the importance of security and privacy to communicate to them. This reminds me of the “open” vs. “native” arguments that existed in the early 2010s with regard to mobile apps and web apps. One side talked endlessly about abstract things like “openness” and “compatibility” while the other presented casual tangible arguments like “native is faster” and “has 3d games”. So unfortunately the argument actually became “open” vs. “good”, which was always going to be a losing battle.
Americans should in theory be primed to care a lot about security. Look at the reasoning for gun ownership or the market for home security services. Of course, those deal with very visceral and “real world” (although ironically in my opinion ultimately fake) concerns. “The physical protection of my family”. I am not saying we should lower ourselves to the level of fear-based FUD in order to advance these positions, but we seem to often do the opposite. Most people have probably only heard largely philosophical or entirely hypothetical and technical defenses for computer security and privacy.
This situation is exacerbated by the fact that privacy and security are unnecessarily difficult. And I don’t mean in the traditional sense, but rather that even if you do entertain the idea of getting these devices you often experience a lot of collateral annoyance such as popular software missing from OS platforms or only slower processors being available, etc. Again, I am not trying to lay blame or rant about things outside of our control, my only goal is to say that it is unfair to make an assertion like “Americans don’t care about privacy” with no control variables. The truth is we’ve never had a situation where Americans could choose between two otherwise equal platforms with the sole exception of one being more secure and private than the other.
Apple may be an interesting case study here, they seem to be doing an OK job of using privacy and security as a marketing technique (again, leaving aside how true it actually is).
We need to stop looking at privacy and security like a philosophical goal and start thinking about it as a product: currently “privacy as a product” has had a really shitty ad campaign. No one wants to wait in line around the block for the new Privacy X coming out at midnight. No one thinks you’re a loser 'cuz you’re on the pathetic last year’s model without Privacy Pro (“mom, you can’t send me to school with this non-privacy phone, everyone will make fun of me!”). I am aware that what I am describing may sound at best boring (marketing is less interesting than engineering), or at worst distasteful (patronizing to the customer), but I think it’s actually about something deeper: communication is important. I am convinced that it is possible to communicate and get people excited about these things. Companies get people excited about worthless stuff all the time, there’s no magic curse on computer privacy and security that makes it particularly hard to communicate (although admittedly there are plenty of vested interests working in the opposite direction). But right now I think our problem is more “us” than “them”, and for the record I think Purism is a step in the right direction.