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Worse than diminishing returns, today we should expect a new invention to be used against consumers rather than improve the world for us.

Consider the DVR. It transformed the experience of watching television before cable companies figured out they needed to acquire it and worsen it. The damage (to them) is done, we got used to fast forwarding through commercials and now that's a necessary feature with cable.

That could never happen today. Profit, advertising, and surveillance are too strongly built into the process of invention right now. Technology companies have mastered enshittification on a level that older industries never innovated on their own.