Not every bad thing is authoritarian. Sometimes you have people powered plagues, such as racism and bigotry, which have been part of human nature for millennia.
"it's for a popular audience" is a bad justification for publishing misleading or wrong information that teaches people a wrong headed view of what a science is. It's not just poor quality, it's a actively harmful to culture and social progress. It's a supernormal stimulus, the journalism equivalent of replacing real foods by sugar and oil mixes -- it pushes people toward preferring wrong things over right things.
That doesn't work at all. Are you going to fill your network with people who aren't really your friend? Visit locations you don't want to visit? Devote more than have your time to this disinformation?
You are saying that people like the banks more than they like tech companies? Or that credit companies had anything nearly approaching the data that is available today -- 24/7 location data, all purchases, all associates, and more?
Gluing batteries and similar techniques make products more robust to damage. Apple hardware is absolutely famous for surviving far longer than competing products. A 10 yr old functioning Mac is not unusual.