Google is far more likely to fit your profile. It’s where ads (adwords and adsense) started to transform the web. First just a few cute banners at the top. And these days some sites just plaster the whole page with them.
Even still it’s hard to pick any singular company that started to make tech suck, they all followed or initiated trends that made things worse from a consumer standpoint.
And every ad-based business has the same underlying strategy: steal from the finite amount of attention you have and use it to extract your wealth.
but apple made it a free-for-all on the device that you arguably own.
for example, you can block google in your browser. web browsing still has choices and is still somewhat democratic. But you can't block google in an app on your phone.
My opinion is that "the big sellout" happened when apple introduced the iphone and the apple app store.
and it basically came down to a couple nuances in their policies...
#1 apps have unfettered network access
#2 apple would never approve security apps like a firewall (because #1)
and when a big player sets an example, it normalizes the situation for everyone else.
I think it was seen (or sold) as "advertising will fund everything" just like television, radio and print advertising did in the past.
Except the old advertising was one-way. Advertising today means ubiquitous surveillance and dossier building on every person on the planet.
It's been ~ 17 years of this iphone BS, and now behavior is creeping into every app, device and platform. Look at microsoft breaking new ground in appalling behavior with each software update.
Thank goodness for linux, open software, open hardware and people coming up with great hacks all the time.