We can blame big tech (or economic elites more generally) for prioritising their financial gain (hence what they can claim from the rest of society) over e.g., ther sustainability and welfare of the very same society on which they lay these claims.

We can blame captured politicians for listening to powerful yet minority interests over the interests of the very people who appointed them to these roles.

We can blame citizens for making politics (literally) somebody else's business by either abstaining or re-electing people who are unfit for office. We can also blame (some of) them for eagerly contracting with said "big tech" and thus enabling it to have that oversized influence on society in the first place.

We can blame soft culture, formal educational systems and journalism for not educating, informing and enabling citizens to play the role that they need to play if the system is to function as it is supposed to.

There is plenty of blame to pass around. But there are also some people who cared enough to track and surface this [0],[1] and many other people in other walks of life that care enough to raise a voice, take a stance, or otherwise inconvenience themselves when facing similar malignancy elsewhere. Its a state of mind and it can be flipped.

[0] https://themarkup.org/news/2023/02/08/how-big-tech-rewrote-t...

[1] https://grist.org/technology/right-to-repair-new-york-hochul...