We've been pretending for a while, now. We pretended Facebook was acceptable for democracy even after the fallout of Cambridge Analytica. We pretended Google wasn't abusing us with AdSense because none of us users saw the harm. We pretended Microsoft and Apple wouldn't sell us out to politicians and sycophants at the nearest opportunity, and assumed TikTok wasn't a trojan horse despite American market access in China being curtailed for years.

Authoritarianism just seems like the next natural step. It's obvious that Americans don't intend to regulate or boycott harmful businesses, so now what? Money takes control.