In tech, we've always said: "If you're not paying for the product — you are the product." In today's AI reality, that statement needs an update: we are paying to be the product. I spend my days working in identity and security at Microsoft. But when I go home, I'm just another consumer — using AI assistants across every major platform, paying for premium tiers, trusting that my subscription buys me not just better answers, but basic respect for my data. That trust led me down a rabbit hole I didn't expect. The Moment That Started This A few weeks ago, I was reviewing the privacy settings on Google Gemini Advanced — a service I pay for — and I realized something unsettling. To opt out of having my conversations used for AI model training, I had to turn off "Keep Activity" . Sounds reasonable, right? Except turning off Keep Activity doesn't just stop training. It disables everything : chat history, personalization, context across sessions, the ability to revisit old conversations.…