@ZachWeinersmith Doc Searls has been exploring related idea for about a decade, originally under the premise that web 2 would make a lot of data scrapable and atomized so consumers would have a lot more leverage for what you propose, and companies would respond projectvrm.org/author/vrm/ I was optimistic, but I think the reality falls flat for a lot of reasons, and instead you have marketing changes like rise of influencers (to your second point).