[asimpletune]

As sensationalist as this sounds I agree. I think a major turning point was when tech became a big business by charging nothing.

1. It’s impossible to compete with free so business that do add real value are at a disadvantage

2. A future where tech adoption slowly was accepted and people eased into being comfortable actually paying for things the value never happened and now feels impossible, as free is expected.

3. It’s created bad incentives. Like keeping people on their devices as much as possible and only show them things that enrage them or confirm their prejudices.

4. None of it is really free because someone pays for it all and those costs are born by society anyways, while having less choice.

5. I think over time this ethos has become mainstream and it’s essentially a fraud mindset. Nothing matters as long as the line goes up.

(This process and the end results are surprisingly similar to academic fraud. “Everything is free” is the same thing as inventing whatever results people want to hear. Both will ultimately lead to the same, unsustainable end result, as people will no longer trust research because everything is fake.)