There's a long term silver lining though. People keep learning. Constant exposure to manipulation makes us more resistent to it. Consider how much the Internet has trained you to recognize scammers, salesmen, trolls, instigators, demagogues and so on.

When people like Zucc get involved in anything and the appropriate amount of skepticism isn’t shown, you’re left with little reason to be optimistic.

I don't think it was ever going to be the salvation from mega corporations. The internet itself was touted as that, but corporations figured out how to capture and own most of it. No reason they wouldn't do the same thing for ActivityPub if it became as common place as the Internet itself.