It is explicitly intended to be, you only have to listen to them talk about it for that to be abundantly clear. Fuck, even ask an AI themselves and they'll tell you about the dangers of how it's being used. The only people saying it's not are the utopian dreamers who are expecting it to be something it's currently not and likely has no hope of ever being. This is not a utopia and the people creating these technologies are not utopians in the slightest, they are mercenary capitalists and they will instantly grind you into a paste without even a shred of remorse or even an acknowledgement that they've done so, if it helps them get their next dollar. Some of them only think about you in the abstract. Most of them don't think of you at all.

of course this is brought to you by Palantir's tools at CMU

Kagi. But it's not free

Looks as if Visa Debit has about the same and slightly less fees than Visa Credit Cards. https://www.clearlypayments.com/blog/how-visa-debit-works-in-canada/ Looks like buying physical gift cards is the way to go...

Selling shovels in a gold rush, can't say I blame them.

There may be several reasons for this. If I had to guess, they found a critical flaw and had to shut it down for security reasons.