It is not inevitable, almost nothing is... This just bothers me because so many people in tech talk about things as being "inevitable" when it's just a lazy resignation to the current zeitgeist.
There are a plethora of other forces at work beyond "the market".
Yes, if no one imagines anything different the future will turn out as we expect. But with even small changes to legislation, norms and culture thing can turn out completely different. It is only inevitable if we resign ourselves to the status quo.
> But with even small changes to legislation, norms and culture thing can turn out completely different.
Those are the qualities that define "the market". What are the other forces you speak of?
Markets can change. They have many times before. But, and call me unimaginative if you will, I struggle to see why anyone would want to pay substantially more to ensure that comments on YouTube are written by a real, live human, let alone enough people to sustain the service. It is not like you are face-to-face at the bar. It is a blob of text that has always been disassociated from what human involvement there may have been behind the scenes.
Inevitable in the strictest literal sense may be too much, but the chances of the market changing here seem infinitesimally small to the point that "inevitable" is close enough.
I see this attitude over and over again, particularly where it comes to regulating things like AI and bans on social media. Tech would rather do nothing if "it's complicated", or had any downside to anyone while ignoring the rampant downsides impacting everyone right now. Sometimes it comes across as thoughtful policy making, but more and more I see it as a crutch for intellectual laziness and in some cases dishonesty.
There are a plethora of other forces at work beyond "the market".
Yes, if no one imagines anything different the future will turn out as we expect. But with even small changes to legislation, norms and culture thing can turn out completely different. It is only inevitable if we resign ourselves to the status quo.