The EU has its faults, too, like this BS about sacrificing encryption. Overall, there seem to be a lot of benefits reigning in big companies, though.

Who else is looking out for their citizens? I think some congresspeople in the US ask tough questions, but in the end, business just goes on as usual.

Yes, the same EU. The fact that it's considering some poor choices doesn't detract from the fact that it's actions thus far have been positive and deserve appreciation. Real Life doesn't split people neatly into heroes and villains.

Actually I will, because big Tech used to be on the level because they knew they would be called out for fuckery. Then Facebook brought the Baby Boomers online and it was the Eternal September on steroids.

This is the same chicken / egg thing as plastic pollutions.

Sure consumers choice of whether to discard or recycle a plastic straw is nothing compared to the decisions of corporations, but then consumers invest in those companies, buy their products, and elect representatives who do not hold them accountable.

Big tech has ruined the internet because people were willing to trade their privacy and their attention in order to watch gifs of cats playing the piano. I'm not "blaming" people for that - hell, I was one of them, but you can't solve the problem without understanding how it's perpetuated.

Strictly speaking, management at Big Tech are all normies and they make the decisions.

I think the point is solid: non-tech-people sell capabilities to other non-tech-people to make money, and this forms a feedback loop and drives direction. A non-big-tech world is wildly different because it's more like tech people building an environment for doing things with other tech people.

The normies support big tech, they love it. They probably work for big tech, or wish they did, or at least imagine themselves as the next Elon Musk.

If a private company has to succeed, it has to offer things ** that normies want.** FB/G is shit because this is what normies consume - the ego-display, the dopamine kick. In every enshittification of a service, there is a history of it being cravingly indulged by the mass. Now when the companies started rising up and used their monopoly, they (the normies) are realizing they have been shit-eating for a long time. One may argue the companies were not so in the beginning, but that would be a very myopic view.

Normally it wouldn't be, but these sheep were told "Do not go to this farm or you will be cooked." and responded with "Pffft, that'll happen to the other guy.." or "Pfft you're just whining because you expect everything just handed to you"

But they weren't led. They were convinced by big tech. But in the end they choose to go into the meat grinder themselves.

As much as I loathe that term, it could be argued that they indirectly are.

The massive increase in the amount of people online made it profitable for companies to be online. Lack of regulations and the inability for regulators to keep up with technological advancements allowed companies to maximize profits at the expense of everything else. The complete inability of government to prevent monetary influence on legislature has prevented good regulations from developing. The fact that the average person online uses maybe five websites in total and doesn't engage further means that most issues fly under the radar of the average person, which limits the ability of any significant amount of constituents to pressure the politicians supposedly representing them to do better, and limits the overall impact of any movement away from shitty sites to better ones.

It's a tangled yarn ball, but one that would struggle to exist without a majority of people to pull money from who just do not care about any of the shit that people more deeply invested in the internet care about.