In this episode of The Human Signal, I’m closing out my series on the Delta flight saga I documented in Episodes #36, #37 and #38, by stepping back and trying to understand what was actually going on beneath the surface of the situation. I examine how platforms and interconnected systems distribute control while avoiding accountability, showing how power operates structurally rather than individually.

I talk through responsibility diffusion, administrative burden, automation shielding, platform intermediation, service hollowing, and enshittification — not as abstract ideas, but as patterns I experienced directly. It’s an attempt to name the structures that make people feel powerless, and to understand why it’s become so normal for the human being to come last.

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