Yes, they do mess with the recipe. They've got money to mask it out and assist with conditioning the population to the new norm. And they can do this cause the service is sticky. Mass client exodus is very unlikely. And the ones that move out for morals are quickly replaced.

Juggernaut is unstoppable.

We have plenty of historical data to draw from here. Cynicism is the rational approach.

Corporations (beyond a certain threshold of market control) doing shady, consumer hostile things for profit is the norm. So I don't think the ticking time bomb concept is nonsense at all.

As a recent example, Google was an overwhelming net positive for years. They genuinely made the internet better. But the day they went public their eventual abuse of their market position, intentional or not, became inevitable. We're only in the early stages of seeing what that will look like.

Asking questions about whether we want to help give companies the market position to become abusive makes the most sense early, not after it's already happened.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. The fact that some corporations do shady things does not mean it is inevitable that all corporations do it.

I'm arguing against the logic: "every big company always ends up being a den of advertising evil". Cherry picking examples like Google is not proof of this.

Not every company is Google or Facebook. Is Apple selling its soul to advertisers tomorrow? Is Netflix going to insert ad breaks every 5 minutes any day now? Is Tesla going to have you watch an ad every time you start the car?

I'm not sure how we got to it being strictly about advertising. Nor did I say 'all'. But the vast majority of corporations with the market power to leverage in shady ways for profit, do in fact do just that.