The cause is 100% economic. Software is incredibly expensive to produce and yet people have become accustomed to it being free, either as free (as in beer) open

The cause is 100% economic. Software is incredibly expensive to produce and yet people have become accustomed to it being free, either as free (as in beer) open source or free SaaS supported by ads. This leads to "creative" ways of monetizing software by exploiting the user and to an endless drive to lock people into platforms where this can be accomplished. In computing the effect is to create a two-tier caste system where tech-savvy people have freedom and privacy and regular folk do not. This is because while all software is expensive (in time or money) it becomes exponentially expensive as one tries to make it more and more usable by regular people. In other words polishing software is often many times more costly than creating the core systems that underlie it. This is different from many other products. Imagine what cars might be like if the dashboard controls and interior finishings cost as much as 100X more than the engine and drive train. That's software. For most products the working parts are the most expensive part. For software the polish is the most expensive part.