In the big picture, I think this is just the recurring story of capitalism. The big players can seize the market. Nearly every industry or medium offers economies of scale that favor large investors. And everything facing the public turns into this advertising and analytics game. So, yes, it's driven by VC money that can buy user attention and drown out the small hobbyists who cannot invest so much in marketing nor features.
I think the answer to your "dismantling" question would be similar to antitrust actions against railroads, steel industry, etc. a century ago. It takes political will and sensible regulation. Economics favor the capital, not democracy or other social values. As in with other mass consumer markets, I think the consumers also enable this in a tragedy of the commons scenario. They each can make self-serving compromises for convenience and enjoyment and ignore the externalities.
By the way, before the internet protocols dominated, there were bulletin board systems (BBSs) and unix-to-unix copy protocol (UUCP) networks. These had some grassroots kind of community federation but also got more commercial consolidation over time. Handwaving a bit, this included systems like Compuserve and AOL. In some ways, USENET was the biggest social media that made the transition from UUCP to internet. It too eventually suffered from the same erosion of its userbase and attacks by commercial consolidation and neglect, before the web.
I think the answer to your "dismantling" question would be similar to antitrust actions against railroads, steel industry, etc. a century ago. It takes political will and sensible regulation. Economics favor the capital, not democracy or other social values. As in with other mass consumer markets, I think the consumers also enable this in a tragedy of the commons scenario. They each can make self-serving compromises for convenience and enjoyment and ignore the externalities.
By the way, before the internet protocols dominated, there were bulletin board systems (BBSs) and unix-to-unix copy protocol (UUCP) networks. These had some grassroots kind of community federation but also got more commercial consolidation over time. Handwaving a bit, this included systems like Compuserve and AOL. In some ways, USENET was the biggest social media that made the transition from UUCP to internet. It too eventually suffered from the same erosion of its userbase and attacks by commercial consolidation and neglect, before the web.