(Your argument reminded me of the oil industry and the (original argument for the) economic relationship between "Big Oil" and resource rich nations.)

> strings and trickery

One could argue that at this initial stage, just as with surveillance capitalism and services like "free email", the general public is being treated like the natives who sell their land for a few trinkets. Once we are passed this stage and just like other surveillance tech our social and economical life becomes effectively dependent on these services, we can review if we have not sold our future for some (arguably dubious) "value".

Go back to early '00s. How did you "value" the "transaction" of handing over the handling of your personal electronic correspondences to a corporate entity that may or may not be an extension of the security state?

I don't disagree. Fortunately, for as long as open-weight models continue to track SOTA with a few months lag, we lose at most those few months if big providers decide to stop playing nice with the people.