I feel like MAD comparison is interesting, but not accurate. The whole point of MAD is that there is nothing left afterwards. That is not what I see happening. For example a lot of terrible things that country leaders did hit the news and ... nothing happened for the most part.

If we are doing analogies, allow me to compare modern digital world to a feudal age. The companies wage war to capture land, prestige, and peasants^w users. Users are then exploited for their data so the companies can sell it and use the monies to wage advertisement wars to capture more users... Alas, the analogy is not perfect for it does not account for hackers stealing the data or peasants revolting and overthrowing the kingdom.