As to other reply: what times has vote with your wallet truly worked? Especially in terms of anti consumer decisions and not just culture war bullshit where the sales trends are almost always temporary and linked to collective groups that apply pressure onto retailers.

People educating themselves doesn’t happen, is the point. People don’t want to do this about every fucking thing. You’re on lemmy. You’re a fucking nerd. I’m not disparaging you, I’m here too. I like researching my product purchases and I get angry about this shit. But my partner? My parents? My neighbors? My siblings? Most of the people I work with? They don’t give a fuck. They don’t want to be bothered. They want to just buy a tv and watch it. We are the minority.

This pipe dream that an overwhelming majority of consumers will suddenly become extremely conscious and educated is, at best, misguided. So let’s say you set up the framework for it: it’s already mostly there, obviously, since you and I can find this info. But then you need to address why most people don’t care. Education? Resources? Other systemic issues? Good luck doing that on a timeline that isn’t generational. In the meantime big tech tightens their stranglehold significantly on the systems that control the majority of the fucking world.

I have seen how regulatory oversight can work. It’s a fight and a battle to keep it working, of course, with constant attacks. That’s why regulatory states that have seen some success, like the EU, are failing, and others that are seeing increasing success, like China, are demonized continually even though they are quickly outranking the USA in almost every major quality of life metric