Pushing SSL was probably the last big tech effort/push that actually benefited users. Sure it made self hosting a little harder, and probably consolidated some tracking behind bigger players, but overall end users did benefit.

Most of what I see now is purely for their benefit and users don’t benefit.

While true, the latest opus model has 1m token context. Which is a lot more than the previous 200k limit. Hard to fill that up with regular work, but easy if you try to oneshot a whole product.

While I agree with this, and I’m not defending skirting regulations, before rideshare apps, taking taxis was an awful experience. At least half the time, if you try to pay with a credit card, the machine was “broken”, if you wanted to get a ride at a specific time you had to call ahead and hope that a taxi would show up.

Rideshsre apps forced regular taxis to up their game and provide better service, some did and now have their own apps.