is it me or does it feel like the american dream is quickly becoming "work super hard developing a new product that meets people's needs, then get bought out and shut down by one of the supergiant orgs that owns everything"?

Big money exit without concern for what happens next has always been the VC-powered startup dream.

You are probably spending too much time on a discussion forum sponsored by a startup accelerator if you think that defines the American dream, though.

You’d have to convince someone to say no to a multimillion dollar VC check, bootstrap themselves financially (and often on “bread and water” levels of available money for their project), and be willing to potentially run or be at least somewhat responsible for whatever they build for potentially decades.

An entity would have to really want to do all that for the “American Dream” to happen.

No, that's the Silicon Valley-specific "Sigma Grindset" Dream

This is why civil design software has not meaningfully improved in 20 years and is indistinguishable from its state 10 years ago. We’re living in a Dark Age. We just don’t realize it.

Welcome to the New Gilded Age

It's going to get worse.