Yep, while the focus in the past was to appeal to power users (because they would bring in the regular users through word of mouth and recommendations), now that most users are already captive to a variety of platforms, the focus switched to dark patterns and deceptive practices to deepen the lock-in and increase switching costs.

Now power users are merely an inconvenience, since they usually advocate against dark patterns and prefer purely functional software.

I'm not sure how to really combat this. It might be too late.