They are optimizing for posts that generate revenue. Since users don’t pay, the news feed is optimized for advertisers and the user posts that lead to more advertiser engagement.
If we're going to entertain the analogy further, Freedom Caucus is an association of funding targets for "VCs" (PACs and super-PACs) in which Russian investors/state agents are possibly LPs (see: reports of Russian money in the NRA).
LPs typically don't have such a direct influence on the operations of the investments, although certain actual LP arrangements have in recent years.
Of course, the nature of political contributions and influence seems to be vastly more complicated compared to VC.
The dismantling of the Fed Gov is decades in the making. While there may be recent foreign influence on the margins, the Kochs, Adelson, Mercer, and the rest of the GOP donor class are the originators of this GOP agenda.
I've seen a couple employees do this to transition to mostly-remote at a big employer. You might have even better luck at a small or medium size company.
Marketing is a fool me once scenario. Quality products earn repeat purchases. You don't become the world's most valuable company with one-and-done sales.
That's not strictly true. Network effects due to tied services can result in barriers to switching. For example, if you're tightly tied to iCloud, migrating to Google Drive might be seen as an enormous PITA.
IMO, this is the principle reason all of these guys are building easy-to-use, tied services offerings... because the OS is becoming increasingly irrelevant as things move to the web or apps go cross-platform.
This is my uninformed impression of the matter as well, and if true (please, anyone with a rebuttal please weigh in), to me it is further proof that the true motive of the ACA is to line the pockets of health care provider donors, by spreading the costs over the entire population and get rid of the politically damaging stories of overcharges causing individual bankruptcy.
Socializing this theft turns it into Just Another Crisis among the hundreds of others the US has.
Having an expansive definition of theft merely serves to raise the noise floor.
The "true" purpose of the ACA was to do something about spiraling health care costs. What was passed was a "compromise" where the people pushing for a public option got nothing and the most onerous restrictions on the monied interests were rolled back. This has not been an effective solution in many senses. I decline to further characterize the issue, however; this is extremely close to a political discussion, and those are ban-worthy here.
There were provisions that addressed cost containment (ACOs, Quality-Based reimbursement models for Medicare). In fact, medical cost inflation has come more in line with general inflation since about 2009/2010. But, you're right, the market based reforms like cost and quality transparency were left to fight another day. The ACA focused more on access to coverage than it did cost.
I would not put too much weight on conspiracy theories though. The healthcare system is massively complex. It will take multiple reforms to eat this elephant.
