All answers to this will have to be anecdotes, unless someone has access to internal memos that instruct managers to systematically engage in such manners. My p

All answers to this will have to be anecdotes, unless someone has access to internal memos that instruct managers to systematically engage in such manners. My personal belief, based only on friendly conversations with people who work and worked in big tech, is that the culture in those companies (especially Google) convinces employees that these "growth hacks" are valid, and that a winning variation in an A/B test immediately means "this is good for our users". One example that I like referring back to is from a product manager I interviewed a few years ago. He was very proud that he was part of a team that realized that since Android has a lot of users and Gmail is the default browser, they can show content to people on Gmail on Android to promote other Google mobile products. No competitor of those mobile products could reach that kind of wide advertisements, and why did Google get to advertise there? It isn't like they paid the most for the ad spot, or had the best product (most mid- and low-tier Google products are _awful_) - it's because one group could go to another and tell them "please put this promotion over there". And one that is more of a conspiracy, but there is evidence that comes up every now and then: Google AdWords has better targeting and data collection capabilities than any other network, because Chrome allows AdWords to collect data that other systems are blocked from collecting "due to privacy concerns". But somehow, AdWords getting that data isn't a privacy concern. My belief is that this is because Google employees honestly in their hearts are convinced they are the good guys and it's OK for them to have this. I'm sure in some cases there's an exec that weighs in, but in so many cases it's Google's elitist and entitled culture that makes employees think that they are superior and infallible to employees of other companies, so it's OK for them to do this. And yes - there is corporate responsibility and liability for the creation and maintenance of such a culture, when it is so pervasive.