This is probably the presiding sentiment of millions of people on the Internet, yet somehow they're the same people that would stand an hour in line in the heat for over priced donuts at a new donut shop opening downtown, or to buy a $1200 iPhone, instead of simply listening once to the music of a family member on Spotify for free for 10 minutes. As a creator now, asking a friend or family member to view your work is like pulling teeth, for no good reason, so creators and artists simply no longer do it and that's tragic.<p>It really explains the way attitudes concerning support for family and friends now don't make any sense... People who grow with family and friend support go much further than those who don't have it now because even corporate America reinforces value based on likes and shares.<p>By listening to the music or supporting art of your piers, they can potentially become career (and profitable) artists, which in turn can make them profitable enough to buy their mother a house and help their family members and friends financially, but now, somehow people don't see any benefit in supporting friends and family BEFORE they succeed ad become popular. People will spend hours doom scrolling on TikTok and not once scroll through friends profiles, because it's somehow more difficult and less appealing than content from strangers, when in fact, it's likely the same, but with less ads and likes, and views, because they are not popular.<p>This is the state of the world, where independent musicians, artists and business owners are foisted into competition with large companies that are vastly better staffed and funded, and everyone competes for visibility on one timeline, with competition and discovery becoming impossible without backing by major corporate interests or by spending a lot of ad money, this fuels the growing wealth divide, and skews the markets into a controlled nightmare for entrepreneurs and people who want to be free of corporate "day job" dependency.<p>I don't think people really understand how terribly they're ruining the ideal of independence and generation of new money by having an attitude against supporting local businesses and individuals, family, and friends, even if their work doesn't match the perceived quality of the larger industry, the playing field is skewed now more than ever.<p>Things simply won't change until we scale down and return to local communities, and keep big business manipulation out of them.