People will always point to technology as the root cause for this problem but I think that the problem is in fact related to our fiat monetary system and 0% int

People will always point to technology as the root cause for this problem but I think that the problem is in fact related to our fiat monetary system and 0% interest rate policy. The way technology evolves is just a symptom of our monetary environment. Would Facebook have been as successful as it is today if it wasn't for our insane monetary environment? I don't think so. My theory is that the Fed is printing so much easy money that money has become effectively worthless to those who already have it. Some people can throw it out the window and it will come right back to them. In such an artificial environment, the only assets that have real value are those which can transcend the current monetary reality. If interest rates ever go up, fiat currency will become more valuable. That means that the price of everything would drop (since prices are determined relative to fiat)... One of the few assets whose value would not drop so much if fiat becomes more valuable is "brand awareness" aka "consumer mindshare". That's why value creation is worthless and everyone is focused on zero-sum games and why some of the most valuable startups in the world don't make any profits. Their rich investors are not interested in today-money (of which they have an unlimited amount), that's worthless, they want tomorrow-money! They will throw away as much money as necessary on advertising to secure their current economic position in tomorrow-land. Also, I think that the reason why the quality of journalism degraded is also because consumer mindshare has become too valuable relative to everything else to let the truth get in the way. The truth doesn't efficiently align with the goals of corporate sponsors to increase brand awareness and gain consumer mindshare. Fed money-printing broke investors' financial compasses such that most of them can't tell the difference between creating real economic value and flushing money down the toilet. If anything, flushing money down the toilet tends to yield higher returns; this is because corporate exits at the end of the VC funnel are fueled by corporate debt which is freshly printed by the Fed.