Indeed. The rise of Meta and the downturn of society seem highly correlated.

I always blame iphone (here come the down votes). Appified the web. Brought everyone online who wasn't already online, causing everything to be dumbed down and sterilized. Absolutely accelerated the commercialization of the web, though that was already in motion for a while. Normalized lack of control and agency over electronic devices. It's always celebrated for bringing the web to everyone; that's the worst thing it's responsible for aside from the slave human labor used to make them.

introducing the public to the Internet was the first mistake

cant think of any other pool shared by walks of life as diverse as us, North Korean hackers, grandmas, school children, actual criminals, actual activists, mom n pops, mega corp businesses, big banks, small credit unions, governments / spies...