What can we even change? It's likely HN will also go to the grave demanding deregulation amidst a maelstrom of consumer protection malfunctions. We're already there in many respects; the DOJ's case against Google and Apple both seem to have stalled-out while the EU, Japan and South Korea all push forward with their investigations.
In many respects, the attitude of "we'll fix this one day" is exactly why we don't think deeply about these issues. Client-side scanning was proposed only a short while ago, and you can still read the insane amount of apologists on this site who think that unmitigated data collection can be a good thing if you trust the good Samaritan doing it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28068741
It will take an utter catastrophe before the deregulation bloc sees what's at stake. This is far from over, despite the unanimous desire to put security in the rearview mirror.
Go out, tell your non-techie friends how data can be misused.
"But I have nothing to hide"
And then tell them the story about the Jewish people in the Netherlands....
Alternatively, ask them how accurately an email need to describe their medical history before they believe it's real and fall for a scam.
That has never been convincing to them because they are fundamentally incapable of putting themselves in the shoe of an "other" like that. Look at all the people who voted for Trump literally to deport all the illegals and cry foul when he arrests their significant other or parent.
This phenomenon is well documented, from "the only moral abortion is my abortion" to suddenly accepting gay people when your child comes out to a huge quantity of Americans only being accepting of gay marriage rights after watching a damn sitcom, to "deregulate everything" types suddenly screaming for the government to do something after they get scammed/screwed/used as expected like most of the crypto community.
True, but there is a large fraction of people who are not like this, but haven't given the dangers of data collection enough thought. You can reach those. Are that enough people? Let's hope so.
I really fear for our older generations and those who are less tech-affine. What chance do they have to not be scammed by AI generated videos, fed by exfiltrated private data of them and their family. Grandparent scam on steroids.