(author here) I agree monopoly & market power is a big part of the story here, but I feel like that is already well-understood; I was trying to describe what the incentives feel like from the inside.

I guess more anti-trust in tech would probably be good, but the reality of network effects & the advertising economy mean it's actually nontrivial for government to intervene in a way that's clearly net good for users. Google has gifted the world amazing free-to-use software that gives me probably thousands of dollars of consumer surplus yearly. Had OKCupid stayed separate they might have had to tinderify anyways just to survive. Same with YouTube and Instagram had they not been acquired.

If I had to point my way to a solution it would be something at the protocol or operating system level. Apple, for example, mostly doesn't make money from ads and could set up their OS in a way that makes apps compete to satisfy user intentions rather than hijack their attention.