Why? It’s because they never arrived at their current behavior by a systematic progression of logical steps. Most of the behaviors we exhibit aren’t that way. We just offer a post-hoc explanation/justification. They use edge, so they defend their action with any argument assertion they can think of.

It’s also (sort of) because they want to tip the proverbial scale towards their current use. Change takes effort and can be irritating. They have their list of positives about edge (faster, easier, etc.), and they downplay the negatives such as privacy.

Yes. I worked for a city and was tasked with occasionally reading emails that had been reported. I got to read some interesting ones, but the one I’m talking about: The auto-theft detective was informing patrol officers about the setting up of the device I described. It would send an email when a vehicle’s license plate was scanned and was returned with a STOLEN result. The majority of the email was about how the officers should not mention the device and only say that they had received a tip about a stolen vehicle.

We aren’t talking about the permanent sorts of signs, like those described by @reversalhatchery@beehaw.org

And there are plenty of hidden cameras as well. I know for a fact that many of the portable signs that display your speed and flash a warning if you’re over the limit are ALSO able to read license plates and immediately alert the police. They were using it to look for stolen vehicles when I became aware of the system, but that was 7 years ago and all it takes is a little tweak to suddenly have a record of every car passing by.