It's something of a mix of both - the world is a web of cabals executing conspiracies but simultaneously most people are so bad at systems thinking that they can't identify the conspiracies from people acting individually in their own interests.

For example, in this instance the fall of the web to commercial interests is more or less inevitable if you look at the basics, regardless of conspiracies (people getting paid produce more & better quality stuff than people making a hobby of it). But if you look at the execution of that dynamic there are always going to be small highly motivated groups of people trying to achieve specific goals on the sly.

It is unusual for any individual cabal to be powerful enough to control a situation.