Consumers are victims of online scams and have their data stolen, but they are slow to adopt security tools to protect themselves.
I honestly blame dark patterns in software for at least some of this. Some operating systems seem to push garbage on to your system with every new update. I just recently heard a streamer complaining about how updating his PC changed his desktop wallpaper, for example. Like… Why?
Also, virus scanners marking pirated software as false positives has done untold damage to their reputation.
Downloading OS software trusted by millions gets flagged in Chrome, “Do you really want to download this?”, then flagged when running “Unrecognized author, beware”. Tons of false positives.
You might get hacked but it’s more likely windows or your updated app might add new bugs or ads or some shit. Quality on updates is often terrible.
Probably not the greatest move but users are generally punished when they update software more often than gain anything (usually just the promise of marginally more secure software) so they are implicitly encouraged to avoid updates.
Would be awesome if software was secure on purchase and not sold as a subscription service.
