Source: Afterthoughts…
The simultaneous collapse of Big Tech’s cultural immunity and the emergence of AI skepticism signals not just cyclical backlash but a fundamental legitimacy crisis—when the public stops viewing technological progress as inevitable and starts viewing tech companies as mere vendors rather than visionaries, regulatory capture becomes possible for the first time. Apple’s forced integration of competing AIs is less a product decision and more a capitulation, revealing that even the most defensive tech moats can’t survive when the underlying technology itself becomes politically toxic.