tech monopolies have got such a death grip on social spaces and indeed the concept of socialisation itself that people are always surprised when they see a space not driven by capitalist interests and see how different it is.

yes i am talking about VRChat vs. the Metaverse, thanks to Dan Olson and PeopleMakeGames

like, VRC and Resonite and Chillout VR are spaces made by the people who want to inhabit them and the vibes are... SO different to the commerce-focused ideas of decentraland and facebook's spaces but why wouldn't they be? no one, when asked what they'd like in their own space, would ever answer "more advertising"

and yet every time it comes up and people see the difference, there's always this element of "oh wow, i wasn't expecting this!"

i think ultimately this is just a reflection of how deeply ingrained in our brains Capitalist Realism is, even among us terminally online lefties. their ideas of how spaces *should* be run are so overwhelming (they're everywhere, theyre' everything, and they're all at once, lol) that eventually you kinda just. accept it.

i wonder if that's why the Advertising sector is so overvalued and the vector that every major tech company seems to be pushing into now? i mean, everything's been restructured around getting the most ads in front of your eyes as possible but it's not even proven that it's effective (though searching for "is advertising effective" just brings up marketing companies. lmao) because it's not about selling the product, it's about selling the idea that There Is No Alternative