are more and more those who are taking advantage of that

Not sure if more people and organisations making use of the simplied thinking of humans. But it becomes more evident with the all connected world provided by Internet and Social Media. Tech made it possible to abuse across the whole world, not only locally.

But dont forget: Abuse is of all times. For instance, in many African countries the tribes are more important then the governments of their countries. The KING is the leader of a tribe. Years ago when the internal war started in Kenia, it were some of the tribe KINGs voicing lies to their people and because of that, they started a war. In the past, lots of abuse by door-2-door sales people in my country, but most of that abuse never got to mainstream media, because we only had 2 TV stations a few decades ago, and a bunch of newspapers. Now this abuse is kinda gone, but shifted to IT/Internet scamming. Just two examples; Have many many more, unfortunately.

I also love empty streets but this emptiness is not calming or mysteriously magical but sad if one is aware of the cause for emptiness.

The difference to the direct observation, and discovering/learning the reasons behind the direct observations.

Emptiness not only in the streets. I'm astonished by the number of members belonging to the younger generations, feeling lonely and depressed now they can't see their friends in a local bar/club or restaurant. But not even that: Psychologist are finding out, loneliness (with the result of increase of depressions) hits a larger group of young adults when they move from being a student into their adult life.