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1 year agoBecause user freedom and experience is diametrically opposed to corporate control and ad driven profit seeking.
These companies have continued to function on round after round of VC fundraising, diversifying their corporate holdings to the point that theyre basically wall street funds, and providing little innovation past initial product launch. When the stock market takes a downturn they become insolvent and they have to squeeze profit which means squeezing users. They have no choice, most of these business models weren’t viable to begin with.
All of Europe is this way.
If you grew up in the postwar period it’s easy to think of Europe as this developed, prosperous, stable place. This mindset is used to venerate white people and compare them to other, and we love to ignore somewhat recent happenings like Yugoslavia and say “that’s eastern Europe” and whatever else. But the truth is that Europe was a war torn shithole full of disease and abuse until the US occupied most of it and rebuilt it with the Marshall plan after the war. It is no better than central Africa, and the place would still be like that today if not for the US occupation. Look at ukraine; that’s just a taste of where Europe is headed over the next century. Europeans love to dunk on Americans for our problems but Europe is just a third world shithole being propped up by the US military and mean reversion is basically a law of the universe.
The US was better, but not anymore. Our societies became infected with self destructive ideologies to the point where I doubt even that society will survive in tact for another century.