but I doubt it’s an entirely ignorant decision coming from a company known to be good at manipulating it’s users.

Damn good point! As a counter, corporate leadership is often surrounded by yes men and insulated from the masses. The meta verse and apples AR flop cost them a lot of money as a result. (Not sure if fb totally gave up on meta tbh)

If you’re lookin for me,
You’d better check under the sea,
Cause that is where you’ll find me,
Underneath the seaaaaaa lab,
Underneath the water,
Seaaaaa lab…

Ahh yes, the freedom loving state. Texas. That’s right.

Yeah I feel you. To echo your last sentence, there’s that old study of money leading to increased happiness but only up to a certain point (I think it was like 75k USD pre-covid)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/rich-less-empathetic-than-poor-study-says.html

To add to this, there’s been evidence that as an individual accrues more wealth, their empathy response lessens over time.

My arm chair psychologist hypothesis is that: as the individual sees their quality of life increase, they look at other human beings in deplorable conditions, and their empathy response atrophies in order to avoid cognitive dissonance.

There’s a concept in the study of wealthy individuals which goes over their desire to hide impoverishment from their view.