[artsytrashcan]

What no one wants to face is the possibility that the tech industry was increasingly becoming a jobs program for otherwise unemployable (at least, wrt the income they wanted/required to live a middle class, financially-independent lifestyle) college grads of a certain pedigree. If you think the crisis of (often justified) Millennial whining and despair is bad now, imagine an alternate reality where millions of even our brightest and most well-connected couldn't find work after college - or worse, were only able to find work that didn't pay their bills or that forced them to move home (rather than these fates being limited to the average graduate) . Offices empty, downtowns and office park-adjacent strip malls seize up, Tesla never gets off the ground (okay, yes, I know, bear with me). Essentially, you eliminate a substantial portion of the consumer market, because everyone in the prime of their non-medical-expense-driven-consumption life is broke. We managed to stave off that Armageddon for a decade, and if it meant entire branches of multi-billion-dollar corporations were spending 90% of the work day comparing Soylent bars and playing Fortnite (dependent, of course, on you're having chosen the right school, major, or parents), then so be it.

Look at what the business of these companies was. None of them needed this many non-customer-service personnel. But that many people needed jobs.