I too was a libertarian when I was 12 years old.

But seriously, if you paid attention over the last decade, there was so much shit about big tech that people said were going to lead to tyranny/big brother oversight, and yet the closest we have ever gotten to tyranny is by voting in a bombastic talking orange man from NYC that we somehow believed has our best interests in mind.

Like Y2K, there's an argument that diligence from the tech crowd prevented this.

Or, the more likely scenario is that Big Tech is just interested in making money rather than controlling the population.

Yep, the tech crowd sure did prevent Palantir and ClearView. Argue away.

While there is some truth to being exposed to certain stimuli through products that you actually use that may cause you to do things like buy shit you don't need, that behaviour is intrinsic to people, and big tech just capitalizes on it.

And people always have the option not to partake.