yup. There was optimism aplenty when the internet was first growing, with the idea that it would democratize information, and pretty much everything. Yet here

yup. There was optimism aplenty when the internet was first growing, with the idea that it would democratize information, and pretty much everything. Yet here we are with a few mega-corps basically eating the whole pie, working as fast as they can to destroy the open internet in favor of their walled gardens, and curating every shred of content and amplifying it based on 'engagement', which is roughly inversely correlated with truth value, moral compass, or societal value (what ordinary publishers generally curate for). The net effect is highly corrosive to governance and society without even accounting for their amplification of intentional dezinformatsiya as part of active measures warfare. As you said, we need to create things that tip the balance towards democracy and the have-nots.