Well, if you want the root cause: this is what happens when your society is predicated on perpetual growth. Everything would collapse if we just left good things alone, so instead we’re stuck either innovating and creating new good things or squeezing the juice out of what already exists.

This has nothing with perpetual growth and everything with training your population to defend these practices with "oh, they're just companies, don't use it if you don't like it!" instead of fighting back.