Basically, companies are doing whatever it is needed to attract users, keep them as long as possible (I think that's called churn or so), and extract whatever they can from them (money-wise of course).
I'm pretty sure that most companies are responding to the market needs (does this sound too naive?) and that the main goal of companies is to make money (I really dislike this idea, and I even have a bitter feeling in my stomach when I even think of this - but that's how the world works) but - what companies do you know of that are "adding value" to the world?
By that I mean, companies that are doing research and (I guess) selling info/stuff/whatever that are increasing the human knowledge in fields like: - medical/biotech (Crispr companies; Crispr Therapeutics, Editas Medicine etc.), - robotics (Boston robotics?), - physics - chemistry (there was a hairdresser that invented Starlite, a thermal shielding material. Interesting project. What happened there? ) - mathematics - aerospace (BOOM, Lilium) or maybe even - legal - ai + language - ai + medicine etc.
As often happens here on HN there are heated debates. Please be polite, even when you don't agree.
p.s. Also I'd like (no, scratch that; love) to work for some type of the aforementioned organisation/company (especially if it's something connected with natural, or even technical sciences). That would allow me to extend my self-learning project(s) and I would enjoy doing that kind of a job. One of the things very close to my heart is open-source...
The banger? The phones are fairly modular and serviceable (10/10 ifixit score) and they sell spare parts for years even after they stopped selling them. Moreover, they freaking made an upgraded camera module for people to pop into their phones instead of buying new ones.
https://www.fairphone.com/en/impact/ https://www.fairphone.com/en/story/
Why the scare quotes? Makes it seem like you don't think it's really something good. The question would be better without them. Good question though :-)