How do tech companies seek to control how we imagine the future?

Like many people, my experiences online seemed to become increasingly defined by alienation. As I began to think about what a better internet would look like, I realized how much of my imagination felt constrained by what tech companies told us was possible under the auspices of digital capitalism. Even the so-called alternatives I came across seemed beholden to what these companies deemed to be realistic. It seemed important, then, to try to understand how these imaginaries have been built and maintained, if we have any hope of developing and enacting truly and radically different alternatives for ourselves.