Womble

I think the element this post is missing is the “Its just a tool” argument is in reaction to the SV cult idea that they are building a machine god that will fundamentally remake the world in its image. Compared to that, “its just a tool” is a completely rational response, yes tools are important and not completely neutral objects, but they are things that modify and shape what people do not fundamental inflection points in the history of the world as the AI boosters (and doomers for that matter) would have you believe.

No, it doesnt just mean “things getting shitter”. The term was made to describe a specific path that big tech companies have followed of transfering value up the supply chain and shittyness down. It is:

1. Make a product good for users so that you attract a lot of them but make sure you have lock in.
2. Once you have lots of locked in users, make their experience shit in order to benefit advertisers to bring in money.
3. Once you have lots of advertisers and they need to use your platform in order to reach users, make the platform shit (and expensive) for them in order to extract as much money as possible from them.

Sounds like a way to lock in a regulartory moat for the big VC labs and exclude opensource and smaller company models.