I feel for the kid asking him what can we do. One of the books I read from Doctorow, How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, I wanted an answer on what we can actually do. And there's nothing I can do about it.
These problems can only be answered at the governmental level and the US Gov is bought and paid for by these monopolists. The whole book was things that us IT nerds have known and warned about for decades.
Same with Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. We all knew from the outside that these were corrupt companies and her book reads like a horror for anyone that understands digital privacy rights.
I had to stop reading both of those books. While I'm interested in the topics, the books really need to be in the hands of those people that can do something. But we know they won't read them anyway.
The only hope I have is that were in the center of the storm and we all come out on the other side wiser and correct course if not, then the shit we're going through now is about to look like "the good times" and that's terrifying.