[keplerdos]

No. Facebook and Google are ad businesses. The data only exists to influence people into buying things they don’t need. It’s a net negative to society.

I don’t know how anyone justifies working at either place, given their mission is to separate people from their money.

[andrei_says_]

Separate people from their money while stealing their attention and time, intentionally triggering and maintaining addiction response, optimizing for engagement which in turn relies on negative emotions, conflict, fear, hate.

Attention x time is the most significant resource we have.

Joy, togetherness, happiness, is what makes life worth living.

The attention economy destroys all of these, causing an immeasurable amount of damage and misery.

So, yes, how much does Sauron pay again?

[acobb99]

Not that I'm disagreeing with your first line, but is there any business that doesn't exist to separate people from their money?

[dotcoma]

Sadly, it's full of places people work at that are net negatives to society.

Google and Facebook are two such places, but the list is long, and not limited to Big Tech.