I believe that yes, privacy should be taken very seriously, and it is worthwhile to take steps to protect our privacy. However, these privacy breaches with Facebook, Google, etc. should not take people by surprise - anytime someone hands over their information to such a company, that information should be assumed to be public.

True privacy, in my view, can only be obtained by using end to end encryption for any confidential information. If access to unencrypted data is given to any third party, it must be assumed that this data will be compromised.

The same goes for financial transactions. If I make a transaction through a bank account, I assume that the bank, government, and other parties have open access to it...if I send an unencrypted email, I treat it as a digital postcard.

Sovereignty over one's own information will only be achieved when we take the effort to use open source, end to end encryption for digital messaging, and privacy cryptocurrencies (such as Monero) and cash for financial transactions. Implementing this requires significant time and effort, but it is a wise investment.