Figureheads of our most “innovative” technology companies speak highly of the things they are making—obviously, this on its own is not a point of interest. But the modern formula used to shill goods and services seems to have shifted from embellishment to something that resembles deification.

No marketing plan or advertising piece in the modern era seeks to simply inform consumers of the thing being offered. No—the thing in question has to be elevated to a status that bumps shoulders with a holy panacea. Every corporation has a loftier goal than reducing margins and maximizing shareholder value and no company is merely making a product. Our modern organizations don’t make widgets or sell services, they solve some aspirational need that will culminate in humanity at-large self actualizing and ascending to a higher plane of existence.

A mattress company does not create a thing on which we sleep, but revolutionizes our life by maximizing our recovery. A shoe company does not compile foam and polymers and plastics, but invites us to step into the a new way of being. Though virtue-washing consumer products is annoying and facetious, it’s important to know that it’s not a new phenomenon. We’ve been doing it since the dawn of advertising.

But our tendency to falsely elevate and grossly embellish the merits of the things we make has led to a new and uniquely damaging buzzword that both obfuscates the method by which the good will be offered, and the good itself. The word in question is “democratization” and if we’re not careful, all we’ll have left is unlimited access to “addictified” platforms that by design brutally eliminate competition and pilfer our attention spans for profit.