"I suppose I have to explain why this makes the US a shittier place to live, given the “savvy” cynicism I’ve seen about how it’s all rotten here already. Tech companies, padding their bottom lines, have made their experiences worse, a phenomenon so widespread and well-recognized that now there’s slang for it. Whether the scandals are scams, child predation, worker exploitation, or violations of user privacy — pick your poison — Trump has offered tech a way to buy itself out of consequences. That makes life tangibly worse for everyone who isn’t a billionaire.

There are those who will say that this is good — that the corruption is happening in the open instead of the shadows. But public, open corruption allows even more rottenness to fester in secret. Consider all the strongman governments; besides their advances in bribery, what did they innovate? Silicon Valley’s leaders fashion themselves as titans of industry, but what they’re really building is a golden age of grift."

https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/20/24346317/trump-gangster-tech-regulation-corruption-grift

#USA #Trump #BigTech #TechRegulation #Billionaires #Plutocracy