[nicoburns]

This is what people mean when they about "Late Stage Capitalism":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_capitalism

Yes, this trend is increasing. And it's essentially a long-term consequence of the laissez-faire capitalist model of attempting to govern almost entirely via the profit motive. It strongly incentivises businesses to prioritise profits at all costs (and those who don't will be outcompeted by those who do). And while most businesses will prioritise value-generating activities in their attempt to generate profit, eventually that isn't enough and so they turn to aggressive user/consumer hostile approaches.

Can we do something about this? Yes, we can regulate and heavily penalise companies who do this. We can also bias the economy towards smaller companies (through progressive taxation on businesses) who are much less likely to engage in such activities as they tend to be more connected to their customer bases and subject to much stronger competitive pressures.