Yes because it damages one's own morals and can increase the likelihood in the future to be the one to exploit "suckers" for profit.

We can still say "I told you so" and have sympathy. But we shouldn't throw the sympathy away in contempt. Another reason is that over our life at least once we will be the suckers, and will look on those who said "i told you so" and see contempt in their eyes. Is that what we want?

I have sympathy for the 1% of people whose response to "Hey I think having these devices is a really bad idea because you can never be sure where the audio is being sent and who's listening" was "You raise a good point, I won't be buying it" or "Thanks for pointing that out, that sounds scary but I trust them".

As opposed to a dismissive "I don't care", "I have nothing to hide", or "You're being paranoid" of the other 99%. Those people either don't need sympathy because they don't feel wronged, or don't deserve it because they shot the messenger.

Yes. If, as a culture, we don’t stand up for consumer rights when a seller mistreats others, no one will stand up for us either.

I agree with the principle but frankly it doesn't apply here. Privacy conscious people have been sounding the alarm about these devices since their invention and the overwhelming majority of consumers typically respond to those warnings with dismissal or ridicule.

There's only so much sympathy and support and standing up for others that I can fit into any given day and I'd rather give it to people who weren't warned about the dangers beforehand.

You probably overestimate how loud are these "Privacy conscious people". I bet if you ask ordinary Joe about privacy concerns with voice assistant devices, he'd tell he had no clue.

I'm just extrapolating from my own experience of telling people about various privacy concerns. 99% of the time it's either "I don't care", "I have nothing to hide", or "you're being paranoid".

> I bet if you ask ordinary Joe about privacy concerns with voice assistant devices, he'd tell he had no clue.

Because Ordinary Joe is willfully ignorant, not because no one was shouting about privacy concerns.

It’s still much more productive to fight the abuser than it is to fight the victims.

Nobody is fighting the victims here.

I would say it's natural for people to feel empathy towards others, especially those to whom an injustice was done. If you go out of your way to justify not showing empathy and write comments about it, you are spending energy fighting our natural compassion. That is how I see it.

I probably didn't phrase it well, but the core idea is to spend effort on those who cause injustice, not those who suffer.