>End user (invididual, small business, large business) clients are ... complicit ... because they are signalling to investors that this is something people/businesses want

Erm, you appear to have missed the last 100+ years of updates to Western Capitalism.

People don't want it, you make the demand with hundreds of millions of spend on advertising (brainwashing), influencers, and social proof.

The capital holders don't sit back and see which company wins so capital can be directed to the best solutions, they buy up the competition, they pay corrupt politicians, they use current v market placement to embed their products name into billions of workplace computers and spread stories about how it's going to 'increase productivity but never at the cost of jobs', etc.

Yes, ultimately a dollar is a vote, but I don't think you can blame the people being manipulated "every bit as much" as those controlling the manipulation to feed their avarice and/or megalomania.

> Erm, you appear to have missed the last 100+ years of updates to Western Capitalism.

Not really.

> Yes, ultimately a dollar is a vote, but I don't think you can blame the people being manipulated "every bit as much" as those controlling the manipulation to feed their avarice and/or megalomania.

Oh but I do.

Collective social guilt is a thing. e.g. who is to blame for drug violence? Not only drug dealers.