So, one lens on the weird direction of the modern Internet is that entities created to route you to cool stuff, e.g. search, social media, have especially in the last 5-10 years been taking an ever larger part of the pie via having giant networks. Google can now control whether a news site lives or dies. Meta can take 99.5% of all ad revenue displayed next to an artist's work and they have no power.
Long-term effect? Damage to the creative class.