Does the current state our attention economy and advertising ecosystem play a major role in the destruction of our planet, depletion of resources, and perhaps the rise in depression through hyper-consumerism?
Some examples of real progress: automation, leisure time, low or no taxes on labor, residual income for everyone, longer lifespans, having children without fear of the world ending in a few years, radical inclusion, decommodification, politics without corruption, ending sexism/racism/agism/ableism/etc, renewable (free or nearly free) energy, free education, free or nearly free basic resources of life like food/shelter, free or nearly free medical care, a gradually lowering retirement age as tech improves..
Some examples of phantom progress: advertising, collecting rents, converting unsustainable resources to capital, profiting from externalities, exploitation of the commons for private gain, charging interest, profiting from the labor of others, paying dividends, exclusivity, service industries, lobbying, divisive politics, monopoly/duopoly, patents/copyrights, unjust law enforcement (unequally applied), celebrity, royalty, dynastic wealth, patriarchy, for-profit insurance, service fees on the transfer of money, forcing the indigent and elderly to work to survive..
Seen through this lens, the larger and less competitive companies grow, the more they impede real progress. We currently live under the largest companies in the history of the world, exploiting more people than at any other time except perhaps during colonialism/slavery. Which is now returning as neocolonialism as the rest of the world catches up to the developed world, so without a cheap labor force, we exploit ourselves.
I only see one outcome without some kind of spiritual revolution: the gradual loss of income and buying power for working people, following a curve like Moore's Law where access to resources halves every 5-10 years as we're steadily outcompeted by the tech of moneyed interests, until money loses most of its value sometime in the 2030s and menial labor grows to fill the entirety of our waking lives.
If Apple truly wanted to innovate, it could for example lead by building its products in the US at standard rates for labor and resources.
Since Apple can't or won't do that, it turns to phantom tech to maintain profits as its ability to innovate for the common good (its original vision) continues to diminish.