I think the comments that the tech industry was always a bit terrifying and this piece can both be accurate. It is the case that the public perception has changed significantly due to lighting trust on fire and that the trust might not have been that deserved in the first place.

The asset liquidation analogy is perfect. For about the past ten year, I think the Cambridge Analytica hearings are a good turning point, tech has realized that their warm and fuzzy persona is no longer valuable cultivating and so there’s been a very rapid burn down of that persona into the hyper capitalist power hungry one we have today. It has always been the case that money and power were motivating factors but until that was laid fully bare there was value in pretending like it wasn’t the only factor.