The backlash against the use of Ring cameras began with their tone-deaf superbowl ad. Amazon assumed that customers would buy their surveillance technology. The whole thing reminds me that we have returned to the Gilded Age, when the rich people who run the world strutted about arrogantly, without fear of shame or public disapproval. It’s as if Bezos is telling us “you have no choice. You will buy our product whether you like it or not.”

Will another Progressive Era bring about more equality, or are the billionaires too entrenched?

The bigger problem is that our digital gilded age is founded in an entrenched culture organizing and framing support for it. It’s one that has been carefully created with several tracks of effort going back decades (some even a century).

Counterculture is disorganized and shallow, and funding is not as abundant where understanding of this problem exists.