It's just human nature. Look at Windows Update. It's a great feature, makes the OS many times more secure - potentially can patch 0-day exploits almost instant

It's just human nature. Look at Windows Update. It's a great feature, makes the OS many times more secure - potentially can patch 0-day exploits almost instantly. But Microsoft cannot use it just for customers good, they have to abuse the feature and use it to push advertisement, push more telemetry (aka snooping), push unwanted OS version updates, push unwanted option changes (oops, Edge is now the default browser). They fear that if they use Windows Update just for customer's good they are leaving money on the table and they hope the majority won't notice/understand the abuse. Same thing with mass media. It's a great feature of modern society and technology - a key element in any modern country (both liberal and unfortunately totalitarian - like Russia and China). But the owners cannot use it just for the society good - they fear they are leaving money on the table (and leaving money on the table means you're an easy target for take over) and they hope the majority won't understand the media is being abused (but as the article states the majority now does understand mass media is being abused and is not trustworthy).