That's the way things have been for a very long time. And yet, isn't the tech industry all about changing the way things are?
We've rebuilt all the same power structures, but with different players.
We could have had a cultural renaissance, a democratization of information and thought. Instead, we got a plague of click-bait tabloids, echo chambers, walled gardens, algorithmic gatekeepers, and television that you don't need a cable subscription for.
Exactly. It was a decision made for Internet users, on behalf of Internet users, _but not BY Internet Users_.
It appears there was debate in the 90s/00s going on, far above our heads whether any given connection to the Internet is to be considered a highly-modularm, highly-democratized "Terminal" or the individual "Pseudonym". Where "Pseudonym" here is the ever-growing bag of personal data, fingerprinting, ISP info, History, Cookies, etc. etc. that distinguishes you from your twin brother/sister).
Instead of Advertising Industry crafting a better message that appeals to the User of any given Terminal, Advertising Industry instead decided to collect as much data on everyone as possible, and infect their pages with invasive malware peddling wares they (usually) don't even need.
Mark Z. made his stance absurdly clear with his identity talks, and generally the rest of the Big Players followed.
And analytic and advertising systems being built upon the "Pseudonym" approach creates a plethora of unsustainable clickbait drivel.
Sure. They could opt out of that, just as some people opted out of having a telephone in their homes back when it was the primary mode of communication -- but they were so few that one was considered strange for not having one.
Of course, the objections to using Facebook are much stronger than they've ever been for having even a television, nevermind a telephone. Yet most people can't seem to tear themselves away. Not that they'd want to. They've got everything they need on Facebook, don't they?
> We could have had a cultural renaissance, a democratization of information and thought.
I have hopes, that we will see a new mindset in the coming decades, which looks back at our times and recognises its primitive state.
There are ways to give the power back to people and raise them in ways that encourage benevolent cooperation and progress.
Some of what's new is bad, but none of the bad stuff is actually new.