Google ads "extracted" value from traditional advertising in newspapers and magazines, so the "exploitation" (or efficiency gains, if you're charitable) came at the expense of employees at other organizations worldwide.
"Mainstream economics" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. It didn't "replace" LTV. Marginal utility is simply an an ideological rejection of it with the confusion of price vs value that ignores class exploitation. The proponents of this were the gensis of the so-called "Austrian school" [1] and thus the fathers of neoliberalism [2].
> So, are you saying that the employees were exploited in some way?
Yes, objectively, as measured by profit. The counterargument is that many were well-paid compared to their non-tech colleagues. While true, they still created way more value than what they were paid.
> I could give you examples of how value is created without any work at all.
I'm all ears.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_school_of_economics
> I'm all ears.
Ageing whisky.
As is "mainstream medicine" or "mainstream climate science". If you don't trust mainstream science, you must be either extremely smart or just delusional.