The data they collect for the AI and the advertising opportunities enable more profits and more revenue to keep infinite growth happening. Even with Azure, even with Github and everything else. If you're not using all the profit opportunities, you are not delivering enough. The economic system doesn't reward or demand stable profits or sustainable growth, it demands compound growth.
This, exactly. Things will only continue to get more shitty as long as the expectation, and often requirement, for businesses with investors is to make infinite money, forever.
That has been the expectation the entire time computing has existed. It will always be the expectation. There is no future where that isn't going to be true.
What actually happens is a cycle. Things rise, things fall, things die.
On the initial upswing things tend to get better while profit and growth are aggressively pursued. Once market dominance is achieved, things tend to get shitty thereafter until someone topples the stagnant product.
This is a legitimate opportunity for Linux + hardware partners, if someone can finally realize they need to build and market to average consumers, rather than expecting average consumers to skill-up / knowledge-up just to use their software.
Or until republicans ruin the earth and make things bad enough that even they agree to introduce legislation relegating what businesses can do to the extent other developed countries have.
