You may be onto something. It is a little bit like google when it first started showing ads. Initially, the ads were clearly marked and were promised to be relevant to the user, but that line has been moved slowly in a way to extract more and more value from the user.. while removing value that user already had.

I know social media had some real use cases. CL and FB marketplace are probably one good example of that. But the rest of it.. best I can say, my overall happiness jumped up after first month of going on a media diet.