I wish I could agree, but I recently explained to one of my most intelligent friends just how much tracking is done, by whom, and how. She just argued that she didn't have anything to hide. A few days later, she admitted that I might have a point, but still wasn't interested in ditching Facebook.
I hope you're right. If something doesn't change for the masses, alternatives will never really gain traction.
A lot of the tracking technology is developing from the advertising space, but also to monetize clicks for affiliate commissions. It's the same technology applied to an adjacent market.
The throughput, latency, computing power and memory wasn't sufficient to do what we can do today a short 5-10 years ago. The hardware has advanced so much over the past decade that it is attainable at the consumer/non-sovereign level now. Anyone with a thousand bucks free monthly cash flow and the coding chops can get very far independently.
I hope you're right. If something doesn't change for the masses, alternatives will never really gain traction.