How about this?: Free trade used to be between roughly equal parties. You wanted juicer, someone sold you a juicer. Today, free trade has evolved into a trans

How about this?: Free trade used to be between roughly equal parties. You wanted juicer, someone sold you a juicer. Today, free trade has evolved into a transaction between you and the rest of humanity where you are expected to yield your information to an entity so that they can use it to better serve you and the rest of the world. For many scenarios, this symbiosis was a net benefit. Recall Nest and the promise to reduce your electricty bills by 10-15% by harnessing big data. Over time, Silicon Valley got addicted to the promise and possibility of making you yield data to it so that they could "somehow" help you live a better life. They tried to extend the idea into areas where it had no business being - a juicer or a coffee maker. And since the average human knows a bad bargain when they see one, they had to sex up the juicer or coffee maker with beautiful design, empty slogans, and beautiful models. ..which is pretty much the author's entire point if you read between the lines.