Software used to take.
Access to your contacts. Permission to track. Rights to your data. All bundled in terms nobody read. All assumed unless explicitly denied.
That model is inverting.
Users now expect to be asked.
Not in a buried settings menu. Not in a thousand-word policy. In plain language, at the moment it matters.
"Can we send you notifications?" "Can we access your location?" "Can we share this with partners?"
The answer is increasingly no.
And products are adapting.
The ones that survive are the ones that work with minimal permissions. That function without tracking. That respect the no.
This isn't just regulation. It's cultural.
Users have been trained to distrust. Too many dark patterns. Too many surprises in the data. Trust is rebuilt one honest question at a time.
The products that ask permission — and honor the answer — will win.
That's the shift worth noticing.