I think it’s because at some point it became fashion to think that businesses can “care”.

An irrational idea that this “emotion of caring” can make life a bit more utopian.

This in turn came to be reality due to mass media, press erosion.

Instead of small newspapers (kids make a school newspaper, adults make a town newspaper, there’s a county newspaper, and so on) most people rely on hugely centralized media representing what is the least relevant for those people - something that concerns them and everyone in the country or in the world similarly.

The thing is - people have conflicting interests, but when everyone is conscious of their own interest, the whole benefits. The finer divisions are, the better. That’s not the case with centralized news. Those make the interest common, integrated. Just all lumped together, no use at all.

The last few decades have seen increasing centralization in all areas.