The existence of the internet and technology, in general, do not necessarily promote nor hinder excessive financial materialism in today's world, contrary to what some or even most people may believe.
The internet, as a general term, is the biggest source of knowledge available to everyone with access and connection to it. The nature of the internet, as such humanity's grandest portal to data and wisdom, does not have to be specified to excessive materialism, nor is it biased towards it. After all, even an ascetic can have access to the internet - and still remain ascetic.
The same goes for technology. Every device created by humanity is a part of technology, from the wooden hut to the new smartphone. Thus, technology as a general term does not have to be, nor is it, biased towards excessive materialism. After all, even before the industrial revolution and long before it, people were excessively materialistic.
Therefore, the internet and technology do not have to stop one on their quest to reduce financial materialism. The key to reducing it is moderation and satiation.
Once moderation is achieved, one's habits that represent excessive materialism slowly but gradually decrease as a tendency within the individual. When we constantly moderate use and consumption, the body and mind begin to lose their attachment to the device, person, or action to which we are addicted, making ourselves more used to less and less of whatever thing it is that we are attached to. Gradual moderation is key to ultimate rehabilitation, until optimal if not full independence is acquired.
One can know that they have become more independent, or completely independent, from the source of addiction (for excessive materialism, AKA obsessive consumption and the emotional attachment to many products and consuming more of these, is an addiction) by acquiring satiation from moderated amounts of usage and consumption that one finds sufficient and different from the original usage and consumption of addiction.
Think about food: you don't really need to eat a lot to be satiated, but your stomach grows in relation to the amount of food you eat, making you hungrier than you should. The same may go for one's brain: not much interaction with some things and beings is generally required, but interacting with said things and beings beyond the level, the line, at which one should find satiation within it, is a potential recipe for long-term addiction.
Thus, to make oneself less hungry, one must eat less until their stomach is decreased in size. The same applies to the areas of the brain that are overstimulated, leading to the phenomenon of addiction. Even at the cost of negative feelings, one must decrease their consumption and usage, making their presence in the lower lines become a habit, until the feeling of satiation, where said presence is preserved once more.
A reduction of something that generates fun within our bodies, even if the fun must be consumed more and more times through addiction, is not preferable for a feeble mind at all, although it can make them healthier and stronger. The line between beneficial fun and destructive fun is extremely blurred.
With the power of logic, self-discipline, and asceticism, the line between the two can become more visible, even if only by a little bit. Consume as much as you wish, but beware of unnecessary slavery, AKA too much dependence, and you can both enjoy and develop yourself through modernity, and still be an optimally independent being. Be alone while together, be free within potential slavery.
