The problem is that algorithms "improve" the user experience. Maybe it's just perception, maybe it's unhealthy, but it engaged people's attention whether they like it or not and that's what keeps them there. 

And most people don't care about the corporation, they don't relate to them directly so it doesn't really matter. 

And most people are consumers through and through. I never realized this in the past because my sales resistance is level 100 and I'm as far from a consumer as it's possible to be. But interacting with normies, their life really revolves around how to get the money to buy the next thing they saw on social media. Whether it's a blatant ad or a "lifestyle influencer", the stuff that makes me cringe in disgust is like cocaine to them. They buy into every latest marketing trend every single time. If it isn't on their social media, they'll go looking somewhere else until they find it  

 Reminds me of that line from Terminator 2:  "We're not going to make it, are we..."