> And we know that the world without online ads is perfectly possible and livable, since we all lived through 1996.
We're in an information crisis. Most people don't know what is true or false anymore. Google and Meta didn't make it better and in fact might have contributed to it. I'd say let's go back to 1996.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
That would be a staggering cut to everyone’s standard of living.
The wealth inequality in the past 30 years has dramatically shifted in favor of the ultra rich.
Technology has been used to create illegal monopolies -> too big to fail -> surely we can't / don't need to regulate this -> tech companies get away with murder and laugh all the way to the bank.
A company like Meta could finesse their algorythms to bias people against antitrust action and you would never know.
To repeat the talking point of tech companies that "technology has helped us, therefore we should not regulate it in any way" is to accept the premise of people that spend every waking hour of their day figuring out what they can get away with to screw you over.