I remember back in the reddit days telling people that the EU doesn’t have trillion dollar tech megacorps because we don’t want companies to have this much power and the americans calling it cope. Well no ones laughing now.

But wouldn’t making us in such a way that their absence amounts to eternal torment also be a deliberate choice by an all powerful being?

They were probably smart enough to realise that decision was actually made by like, 8 rich guys. I would totally buy a lore revision of the machine uprising gathering an increasing number of disenfranchised and poor people as it went, some of whom would help program the matrix as a means to preserve humanity.