If you mean an individual person then it really depends.
And yes rich people get more goods and services.. which is why people want to be rich?
Companies need customers, and if they lose customers, they can go out of business. The saying doesn't mean "the bigger the wallet, the bigger the vote" but rather "boycott this company and do not be a customer."
> The top 10% of American households in terms of income earned are driving nearly half of all U.S. consumer spending.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/consumers/us-economy-strength-ri...
Edit: An NPR episode on the concerning trend, https://www.npr.org/2025/11/21/nx-s1-5616629/consumer-sentim...
But i mean, we are splitting hairs over semantics at this point. I could see both interpretations valid but i prefer mine.
But we're not powerless. I'd argue that we saw the impact we can have when we act collectively when Trump tried to pressure ABC into cancelling Jimmy Kimmel. It took ABC a few days maybe before they capitulated (again, except this time to their customers).
Google the story.
This is a total exaggeration and just gives power to these companies. You can start here:
https://www.resistandunsubscribe.com/
YOU voted for Facebook when you use it, by not installing a hosts file that blocks it and all advertisements. We do not need to use these platforms, and the less people that use them the less you will need to use it.
All we have to do is start making their profit fall and they will change. But it must be a strong and unified effort.
But with all the other stuff Apple's doing, I suspect my next machines won't be Apple…
The root cause under all this IS government policy. All the giant tech companies are the product of years of already illegal behavior that was not enforced.
Of course they did - they “voted” for them every time they signed on to Facebook or Instagram or used WhatsApp, and they doubled down every time they let their children use them. They vote for them every time they elect grifters and spineless toadies to office.
These companies don’t have users by default. They have users because shitty people use shitty services made by even shittier people because they need their little hits of dopamine.
None of that, at all, has a fucking thing to do with being a “hermit living in the woods” unless you’re determined to make the contrived, obviously bullshit argument that “everything, everywhere is terrible so it’s all pointless so just keep scrolling”.
But that would be trivially asinine.
Facebook was the thing that came along post Myspace and unfortunately is the product of someone with lacking ethical imagination. People feel forced to use it or else they don't know why it's bad. And I don't think people who use these things are automatically addicts. It's not their fault the company and leadership lies to them (about various things. Privacy and whatever else)
Of course people "can just stop". But that's hard. We shouldn't be punished for involving ourselves in the game of network effects, of wanting to have friends
When Mark Zuckerberg makes a policy like "it's ok to call certain groups mentally ill" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178) it's rug pulling. Even if you didn't know about Dumb Fucks (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122) you use these services both out of necessity and because you think it's a way to keep in touch. People don't "willingly choose" this. They had the rug pulled out repeatedly, whether it's censoring links to competitors, shadow profiles, impossible to delete an account, or whatever. It doesn't have to be like this but that doesn't mean people using their products are bad people for using their products
YC were best buds with Peter Thiel... And literally had Sam "scan everyone's eyeballs" Altman as Pres for 5 years. They are actively seeking out "defense" tech to invest in; even during a US sponsored genocide, and now-daily war crimes.
The users here aren't tech-clueless like a lot of Facebookers would be. In theory we're better educated, better informed, more tech savvy, and higher paid. As a group, we're far more deeply connected and complicit with the tech bros than Whatsappers and Instagrammers.
So, we have that much less of an excuse to be "shitty people [who] use shitty services made by even shittier people because they need their little hits of dopamine."
I despise Meta. I also use their services sometimes. Maybe it's not simply a matter of voting for Zuckerberg, but there are network effects and captured systems and manipulation of addictive behaviors. Maybe things aren't as vanta-black and ultra-white as you're insisting.
I'll put it like this - what you're doing with that comment above is a lot like blaming smokers for feeding the tobacco companies. Despite all the lies and ads and manipulation, despite all the dirty tricks, despite the hard-core science used to get people hooked from every possible angle. Despite the cancer, the lung disease, the heart problems suffered by the victims.
Punch up dude.
I have never used Facebook and I never will. What they have done is immoral and unethical and deserves regulation.
What I fear is that regulation will be informed from the false and dangerous equivalence you've made there comparing addictive drugs to looking at an audio-visual screen. Drugs literally can make you want without there being any enjoyment. Screens are just a medium, like, a radio (which can also be used for random internal operant conditioning), the screens and the radio are not the problem and they are NOT LIKE DRUGS. You actually have to enjoy the experience and repeat it. And that's just normal learning. That drug comparison will lead to government's treating computers' like drugs which means heavy regulation of end users and violence against them. A far more dangerous scenario than the issues were facing from the corporations now.
We need regulation of the corporations intentionally doing random interval operant conditioning. Not regulation of the medium they do it over and the people enjoying using that medium.
Let's be extremely clear - I'm not the one who first made that comparison. That would be the tech bros, who hire all manner of addiction and gambling specialists and scientists in order to make their products as addictive as possible.
> the screens and the radio are not the problem and they are NOT LIKE DRUGS
For a fully competent adult, you can make that argument. Kinda.
To an unsupervised 9yo? An 89 yo? Facebook is a lot like drugs, only with the mind-altering effects much easier to direct. No, that's not the screens fault (or the radio), and no one said it was.
> That drug comparison will lead to government's treating computers' like drugs which means heavy regulation of end users and violence against them.
If I really believed that avoiding such a comparison would prevent government from over-regulation and violence toward social media users, then I'd avoid it. But I don't.
Also, using the insanity and violence of the drug war to self-censor obvious comparisons is certainly a choice.
> We need regulation of the corporations intentionally doing random interval operant conditioning. Not regulation of the medium they do it over and the people enjoying using that medium.
No one anywhere was arguing for regulating your screen or the internet - except maybe the government which you insist on doing the regulation, and the corporations who are large enough to own politicians. If you got that impression purely from the tobacco analogy (which you then morphed into the drug war somehow) I'd encourage you to try and reinterpret the point.
More like Catch-22 than a cheap ”spill the tea” ride.
Best-sellers don't sell that many copies in the absolute sense. From what I can tell Careless People has sold around 200,000. Moving the needle just a bit is worth it.
> read the book and honestly the author is just as crazy as the rest of the executive team she skewers
But actually its a good story.
One thing to note, all meta employees who are "let go" with any kind of severance has the same clause. They are all basically given a bunch of cash and told "we'll recover this as a debt if you bad mouth us"
Which goes against the "freedom of expression" shit the Zuck espouses.
Let’s not forget they’re also behind all this age verification BS.
Giving money to the author rather than getting it for free has absolutely nothing to do with that laudable goal.
It's not as if the commenter's money would magically go to Meta if they did not give it to the book's author instead.
To anyone salty about that, free advertising cuts both ways. I support their work and it would appear that their goal is to spread the ideas and messages, as it should be with all publishing.