I don't know. I'm quite worried that the whole technology space is turning into a big brand feud war arena.
We are begining to see the subverting of unrelated products into business strategies. No, I don't want my browser/car/glasses/phone with any strings attached. What are we looking forward to a decade from now? iBank? FB insurence? G+ real state?
I for one will make efforts to avoid those products like the plague. If we do not strenghten small brands, we accept the rule of the big ones.
This is what RMS and others have been saying for decades. Free software, data ownership and privacy aren't "nice" things to have or tinker with, they are absolutely crucial freedoms.
Why wouldn't they do that? What's in your refrigerator and how long it's been there has been discussed almost as often as flying cars, within an order of magnitude.
Once checkout of items is commonly done with NFC or RFID or similar, then it's a mere matter of engineering for GE to accomplish exactly that, all taking place on the internet of things.
Why? I'm already not using Facebook products because they have no respect for user privacy. IMO they have very definitely crossed a line in the past, several times even. That has consequences.
Additionally, Opera is the only European browser. That may sound stupid, but it's part of the things I can do to put as much distance between me and that messed up country the US of A. Getting bought by some huge US corporation is yet another vector to subpoena my shit or the US gov to influence my life.
Why would FB buy Opera, except for scenarios similar or exactly like you list?
If I'm a frog in a pot, and I see you turn on the gas, I'm jumping out, because I know ahead of time that it's going to get hot. By the time the water boils the (subjective) damage has already happened.
Which is to say, I'll leave fastmail before the ink is dry on a FB/Opera deal.
Aaannnnd ... I don't use their email except as a backup (a destination backup, not a place to backup my email). I don't use their browser, but that's mainly because I don't like it. The tinfoil fedora does chafe a bit when I do pop Chrome up.
One problem is that we might not know (what) it's sending to facebook, as we don't have access to the code to review it. Sure there's tools to analyze/reverse engineer the client, but that isn't really a practical option.
Opera users instead trust Opera on the security and privacy they claim to offer. This tends to work fine, as Opera have a good reputation for privacy, and they have not abused the trust of their users.
Facebook have, multiple times. Anyone who cares about privacy will avoid it purely because facebook cannot be trusted. Trust must be earned, and facebook have much work to do before they will earn the trust of many (if ever).
I'm not quite sure what it is, but when companies are large enough, people tend to be forgiving, as if their past sins have been cleansed without any good reason. People tend to misplace popularity with trust - if so many people are using it, can't be bad for you right?
I mean - okay, If they start modifying it to send your data to Facebook without way to opt-out - sure, do that.
If they start showing ads in fastmail and reading your mails - sure, that's reasonable.
But I really think that doing that the moment FB acquires Opera would be quite an overreaction.