As a DDG user I share your same skepticism. But I also believe that privacy will become a premium feature, even a symbol of status - similar to the iPhone/iMessage today. Poor people will buy devices that are subsidized with "targeted advertisements" and Facebook apps they can't uninstall. The premium market will pay to not deal with this nonsense.
Targeting works the more data you have. You could target “well off iOS user” but that’s less invasive than “searched topics of adoption and abortion. Recommend local abortion clinics”. Ya see what I’m getting at here?
If you have few enough users on a given platform, they tend to be identifiable by being so unique. If there's one user who logs in from Chrome in Incognito on an iPhone X via a VPN in North Korea, it's not too hard to fingerprint them, if you're looking for it if course...
