If people are making money on a platform, people will develop for it regardless of these issues. Unfortunate reality.

Democracy only works in a growing economy.

Why is this a meme? Is there any evidence that this is true?

Self reply- it appears that Sam Altman made this assertion in a recent New Yorker article as well as a blog post. I think the observation of low growth is good, but the assertion that democracy does t work without a economic growth is less persuasive. All forms of progress need not be measured by GDP. In fact, many issues indicative of social progress have difficult to measure economic impact or even potentially negative economic impact with good social benefits.

On a related note, as a small startup I am looking for some TOS generator that I - the single developer - could also understand and that will be clear and fair to my users. Any advice?

Iubenda,https://www.iubenda.com/en, has worked well for us.

Excellent question. I know of no answer, but maybe part of the issue of terrible TOS's is lack of resources to write good ones?