It's not "pure greed." It's keeping up with the Joneses. It's fear.

There are three types of humans: mimics, amplifiers, originators. ~99% of the population are basic mimics, and they're always terrified - to one degree or another - of being out of step with the herd. The hyper mimicry behavior can be seen everywhere and at all times, from classrooms to Tiktok & Reddit to shopping behaviors. Most corporate leadership are highly effective mimics, very few are originators. They desperately herd follow ('nobody ever got fired for buying IBM').

This is the dotcom equivalent of every business must be e and @ ified (the advertising was aggressively targeted to that at the time). 1998-2000, you must be e ready. Your hotdog stand must have its own web site.

It is not greed-driven, it's fear-driven.