They don’t care if the AI produced is useful, they just want to milk as much money from their content as they can.
The API changes were almost certainly just the groundwork for this and I called it at the time. The ridiculous pricing model for API access is because it’s aimed at the hottest tech companies, not third party app developers.
The enshittification continues because it’s what neoliberalism demands. They’ll sell your content and the data they have about you and still show you ads, because that’s the most profitable. Ethics and product quality don’t even enter into it.
Climate change denial was the product of oil companies and worked on idiots. The “it’s too late anyway” is likely also the work of oil companies and works on people who think they’re smarter than the idiots.
The very first prompt this AGI is given will be “secure as much wealth as possible without breaking any laws that might see us punished”.