there's a lot of pieces like this but one thing that always stands out to me is the sort of 'half-Marxist' nature of the critique "But this business model is n

there's a lot of pieces like this but one thing that always stands out to me is the sort of 'half-Marxist' nature of the critique "But this business model is not inevitable, nor is Marx correct about there being one and only one ethical system that results from a given mode of production. If we, as a society, made a conscious decision on how we wanted to live, in particular, if we decided that we valued new and more interpersonal connections without our local communities, then we could use those same market forces to encourage lots of such connections to happen" If you're already starting with Marx you ought to take him seriously. The author owes us an explanation as to why Marx is wrong when he recognized that our values are the product of our material relations, and that we do not just wish them into existence as we please. You can't go pre social media any more than you can go pre-industrial. In Marxist analysis, the market forces use you. If you're going to keep one aspect of Marxism stick with the materialism, not his theory of value.