Comment by planet-and-halo

Shoshana Zuboff explains this perfectly. These companies disempower and commercialize people at the exact moment of empowerment, e.g. I provide you with a cheap smartphone / free and great service (like Google Maps) at the exact same time I load it up with trackers so I can sell your behavioral data. This is exactly what makes it so fraught. People aren't objecting to cheap phones, they're objecting to the continued commercialization and manipulation of human experience.