Technology has started to make it easier and easier to be anti consumer. To maximise how much you can extract out of consumers.

It is making it easier to understand and control exactly how they use products and services. This allows you to structure your price and offering to give them the minimum amount they’ll accept at the maximum price. Allows you to strip features out and offer them for extra. Allows you to hide things behind ongoing subscriptions. Allows you to better lock people into products and services, making it more difficult to switch/leave.

All of this was possible (and being done) before, but technology makes this so much easier/better.

Technologies often start out by making something easier for the consumer. But beyond the early stages, it’s all about making the world better - for the corporations developing and selling products and services.

Exactly!

This pretty much summarises it.

I’m out of the loop, what happened in January to cause that sudden growth?

I have an account but I’m not active. Just not much of a social media guy in general.