Privacy still exists. It just depends on what level of privacy you enjoy based on your efforts to secure it.



Also, many people have largely moved attempting to plug all privacy leaks to securing 'important' things only because the effort to secure privacy across the board is so great that they can't or don't want to keep up so they focus on privacy for absolutely important things. What is important varies from person to person. Some people video family photos important, so they bulk EXIF clean them and drop them into a Zero Knowledge Encrypted cloud and call it a day. Easy. Their important things are secure, and private.



I sort of think it's been broken down into three types of people and three levels of privacy.



1) No privacy. These people just don't care.. All of their stuff is sprayed across the internet. They're largely hacked, compromised or totally exploited by datamining firms. Many consider these type of people idiots but they are just average joes for the most part that care about things like their blinds on their windows more than privacy.

2) Semi-Private. These people spend a small amount of time but virtually no money on privacy. They probably still use Gmail, but may use a more private search engine, maybe some privacy extensions and a password manager. They might even 'dabble' in encryption here and there but nothing serious.

3) Super private people. (same level as #2 BUT) They scrub the internet of as much as possible. Use privacy tools. Maybe VPN's.. Zero Knowledge services, secure email, maybe even alternative search engines. They think about privacy quite regularly, and it concerns them. They DO spend some money on privacy here or there.

4) Privacy Enthusiasts. These guys do 2,3 but also take it to a higher level, think about privacy almost daily, and utilize the latest privacy tools, paid privacy services and regular privacy audits. They also broach counter intelligence realms, actively working to obscure their activities not for criminal endeavors, but to assert their rights to privacy when possible.



Depending on your efforts, finances and knowledge probably depends on where you sit on the list.. Maybe you sit between two areas or something. Contrary to what people say it is still possible to have significant, impressive levels of privacy in this day and age. It's achievable with effort, money and knowledge. People do it every single day under your radar and you just don't know it because you not knowing is part of their privacy scope!



So we have some choices here.. Pick between 2, 3 and 4 or just throw up your arms, give up and be like a regular joe, enjoying ignorant bliss 'until' that day arrives when you realize why that bliss was a myth and can cause some big problems.