So what can any individual actually do about it?
Every click, every swipe, every like, every purchase fuels their algorithms. They all boil down to the same thing: What will you do? You—the customer, the subscriber, the potential investor, the employee. Even when you think nobody is looking, every choice you make reverberates in gravitational waves.
Only you can help break this cycle. If you are not yet addicted to the products and platforms extracting value from you rather than creating it, do not begin. And if you still have the strength, walk away. As a customer, as an employee, as an investor, you have the power to refuse.
Typically, this is framed as a “collective action problem,” as if there is no point in doing the right thing unless you’ve already agreed with others to do the same. But seeing it this way causes us to miss a surprising source of power. Remember how gravity works: It emerges from perception. Every transaction sends a signal. When you walk away, that action becomes their data—and someone’s OKR. When enough people make similar choices, even without coordinating, leaders see the pattern. That’s how individual gravity becomes a collective force.