Why is this happening?
It isn’t by accident. Someone wrote the rules this way.
Corporate-friendly legislation and gutted oversight created an environment that favors the wealthy over you. This isn’t market forces. This isn’t inevitable. This is policy choice.
Federal tax and corporate law have always been riddled with loopholes. But under the Trump administration, deregulation was put on fast forward. More than 600 federal rules were cut, weakening oversight and stripping away enforcement.
When rules disappear and no one is watching, corporations gain pricing power. They decide what you pay, when you pay it, and how much choice you really have.
That same playbook is now being applied to AI. Quiet approvals, limited records, and fast-tracked decisions are concentrating enormous power in the hands of a few companies that control data, pricing, and automation with almost no public accountability.