It's actually pretty simple on the social/cultural/collective aspect.
Ego is a mental illness whose primary characteristic is blindness to itself. Sans that all important potentially self-correcting feedback, ego has nowhere to go but Crash'n'burn-ville, sure as a casino necessarily profits off payoffs less than true odds per the simplest of math.
That blindness is also impervious to elucidation from without: anyone holding up so much as a birthday cake candle of corrective instruction is met with egotic fools rushing in to publicly judge and cancel them, guaranteeing an internet-accelerated pace of haste to the bottom.
Good luck with your selves, self-focused/centric selves!