alt Hacker NewsYup "could shape".. I mean this has been going on time immemorial.
It was odd to see random nerds who hated Bill Gates the software despot morph into acksually he does a lot of good philanthropy in my lifetime but the floodgates are wide open for all kinds of bizarre public behavior from oligarchs these days.
The game is old as well as evergreen. Hearst, Nobel, Howard Huges come to mind of old. Musk with Twitter, Ellison with TikTok, Bezos with Washington Post these days etc. The costs are already insignificant because they generally control other people's money to run these things.
Your example is weird tbh. Gates was doing capitalist things that were evil. His philanthropy is good. There is no contradiction here. People can do good and bad things.