By my way of thinking, your choice of language (not because of you, the person, but of how the words have become ingrained) is indicative of the problem: "consumer" versus "customer." We consume what the various companies choose to offer to us in the way they offer it. We are not treated as customers, valued or otherwise, in a competitive landscape. There exists a one-way flow, from the company doing the advertising to our eyeballs to consume it.
Look at the businesses people claim to like: local shops, service providers like Fastmail, and the like. In those cases the people giving them money are treated as customers who have other choices and who have made the voluntary choice to continue to associate with that business.
That's what is missing. Customer instead of consumer.