"Scientists run tests on guinea pigs. A/B testers run tests on me. Therefore I am a guinea pig. Guinea pigs have no rights. Therefore A/B testers are taking away my rights."
I've never been a fan of this particular type of logic and reasoning (or lack thereof).
In the tech world, maybe. But not in the real world.
For example, one of the colleges I went to was in an area with a lot of pharmaceutical companies. My friends would A/B test drugs for the companies. They made enough money to pay for college. But it was all completely consensual, with contracts and disclosures, etc...
Companies in the increasingly morally bankrupt SV bubble just test on people without letting them know about it. That's the problem.
Like it, or not, these companies believe the terms of service at the bottom of the page suffice for your consent. We really need this problem to be tackled on many levels (legal precedents that terms don't matter, education, encouragement of good alternatives, etc.)
Until that time, folks in the SV bubble will just keep doing this. Companies that can operate only from the US are effectively untouchable when it comes to regulation. Big companies like Facebook get caught a bit because they have offices, but many no name companies acting as data brokers, etc. don't have a presence and are hard to deal with.
