I definitely had a naive little image in my mind of how things would be, but I see where you're coming from. I think one of the things that would push monetization techniques like the ones you mentioned would be if the hardware doesn't have enough compute power to process video, audio, etc. Having to be tethered to a cloud would make it more feasible to do those sorts of intrusive things, ie how Alexa picks up audio but Amazon servers process it.

Although speculative cyberpunk is usually dystopic and oppressive, it fascinates me how much of those predictions have come through or are in the process of occurring. I think the major breaking point will be climate refugees moving toward cities, which could lead to megacities, which have notoriously been imagined as highly populated by an impoverished class of people.

Thanks for the little dose of reality. I hope we can nudge our future by starting these sorts of conversations.