> OTOH, Google & Meta are advertising companies. I question their utility to the world. True, advertising is a huge part of Google and Facebook. However they a

> OTOH, Google & Meta are advertising companies. I question their utility to the world. True, advertising is a huge part of Google and Facebook. However they are so ubiquitous and embedded in our lives via the the Google search engine, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube... that you seem to only remember the unpleasant side which is advertising. Haven't you run thousands of Google searches by now? Sent thousands of WhatsApp messages (i) ? Seen thousands of YouTube videos? Surely that has given you tremendous utility. You may argue that you find the the way Facebook/Google are making money as unattractive, but surely these companies have provided net positive utility to you and the world? They are also some lovely open source projects that have come out of these companies that are being used by the next wave of startups! (i) In some countries WhatApps is not dominant so this may not describe you.