And a not insignificant amount of people beg for it. Which one is worse honestly?

I think it's inevitable. Whenever human invents a good thing, another human finds a way to circumvent that good thing into bad thing that profits them.

Okay a genuine question, what is the method to not let them do this to us? The legitimate only way I can think of is completely disconnecting from society, but this is near impossible because it's near impossible to find a place you can become self-sustainable, and it also takes a lot to even accrue the wealth to have the means to become self-sustainable, which means beimg a part of this society.