Submitted 1 year ago by phudgins@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/dd8173f9-fffa-440a-83f9-98e0d5edc944.jpeg
No longer science fiction.
Because they are all businessmen. We have made a system where there are no more craftsmen. The car companies are more financial institutions that want their monthly fee, just like your doctor wants it, your washing machine manufacturer wants it.
Real question here: is it possible to walk all this back from the edge with more ethical companies? I’m thinking co-ops, Mondragon corps, union shops, etc. Basically build businesses that have motivations other than deepening the pockets of VC’s and the like, yet have some kind of growth trajectory (or federate with other corps) to gradually subsume the market.
I get that massive funding makes certain things possible, like disrupting the market, or aggressively buying your competitors. And yes, the company charter would have to be bulletproof against hostile takeover, buyouts, and enshitification, in order to go the distance. But is that really all it takes, or am I missing something huge here?
As someone else said, you have to remain 100% private. The second you become publicly traded, that’s it.
Even then, if you want to make a difference in an established industry, you all but require preexisting deep pockets or some extremely disruptive technology that can’t be easily copied.
You then have to remain steadfast in the face of the ridiculous money that will be dangled in front of you to be bought out.
There’s a lot of stars that need to align.
I agree. The environment in which this must function is corrosive to the very idea, hence why I’m asking it openly here. It’s a pretty dense minefield.
I’m no lawyer, but I’ve mused a lot about some kind of legal “dead man switch” that somehow renders the company value-less if it deviated from the intended path. Something built into the company’s charter and founding documents, not unlike some kind of constitution.
Yes, by staying privately funded and not throwing everything away chasing quarterly profits
Basically, it’s about the leadership.
Boeing leadership used to be exclusively the engineers who have worked their way up. They knew the ins and outs of every step, what works and what doesn’t work, and therefore had a huge focus on safety because they weren’t profit driven.
Then they brought in someone who wasn’t an engineer and things immediately went south. I want to be cheeky and say that MBAs ruin everything because that way of management takes everything human out of management. Making that line constantly go up forever is the issue.
So, for a company to produce products that actually work, you need leadership who isn’t profit driven and who actually has experience at all levels of production.
Enshittification is the end result of putting profits above everything. There’s a reason why XJ Cherokees are still running today despite being over 40 years old. Their internals were so simple that even the most mechanically illiterate could work on it with basic tools from the hardware store. Something like that wouldn’t be make it past the pitch meeting today.
Simplicity is certainly a thing, but you shouldn’t forget that there’s quite a bit of survivor’s bias in that statement
“But have you considered our ever-rising quarterly profits?!”
The main thing about the prevailing circumstances is that it showed idiocracy was way too optimistic. Their eugenics-ish narrative happened over way too long a period of time. We just needed a bunch of billionaires to poison the information supply.
That’s not true at all.
In Idiocracy, the president and his cabinet put their smartest people (well, person) in charge with zero pushback and listened to and trusted expert opinion. When a policy failed (Brawndo went out of business and took the economy with it), there was swift punishment for those directly responsible, and when policy succeeded (crops were growing), they quickly pivoted and elevated those responsible. In Idiocracy, the most competent people were put in charge.
What we have is MUCH worse; people stupid and short-sighted enough to destroy everything in the name of ego and greed, and just smart enough to be successful in their destruction of our societies, governments and planet.
I would much rather be in Idiocracy if I’m being honest. At least those people were trying their best; can’t fault them for that.
Lol but dude, the people in our world are trying their best. The problem is that their best is done at the expense of the general population.
they were trying to get out of the Find Out part of the timeline, i think the suggestion is that we’re in the prequel movie where we are Fucking Around.
Thats a documentary. Not a movie.
That’s not true at all.
In Idiocracy, the president and his cabinet put their smartest people (well, person) in charge with zero pushback and listened to and trusted expert opinion. When a policy failed (Brawndo went out of business and took the economy with it), there was swift punishment for those directly responsible, and when policy succeeded (crops were growing), they quickly pivoted and elevated those responsible. In Idiocracy, the most competent people were put in charge.
What we have is MUCH worse; people stupid and short-sighted enough to destroy everything in the name of ego and greed, and just smart enough to be successful in their destruction of our societies, governments and planet.
I would much rather be in Idiocracy if I’m being honest. At least those people were trying their best; can’t fault them for that.
At this point it’s more of an overly optimistic look to our future.
An ice cream maker (I got at Sam’s club) had plastic gears. Thing sucked. The gears would break every third batch of ice cream (I make thick custardy ice cream). My grandmother gave me the best gift, which was her ice cream maker from the 70s. Metal gears. Now I’ll blow through motors instead of gears hooray.
It’s because the hot idea in business right now is rental models for everything.
If your business plan doesn’t have a way to lock customers in and force them to keep paying forever, then no investor is going to look at it.
Software is subscription, infrastructure is subscription. Hell, your own data is probably subscription based these days. Buy a car? Bet your ass it has at least 1 subscription service in it.
One of the driving forces behind this phenomena is that business types value having that reoccurring revenue on the books more than “normal” revenue. If you have two companies with identical revenue but one of them gets it from customers locked in on a subscription, that company will be valued significantly higher. If you’re an exec or a big investor who owns a lot of stock in a company then you’re effectively incentivized to push the company towards that subscription based reoccurring revenue model because it will boost the stock price and make you richer.
I was talking about this with my friend the other day. I was looking for car insurance right. I went to Geico and I was just about ready to lock in to a plan for 1000$. I had a question I needed answered so I went to support. What I got was a worthless chatbot that ended up costing Geico my business. I was so displeased I ended up going to progressive.
But that begs the question: do Geico executives make more money off the increased stock valuation that comes from implementing a chatbot despite losing my real, cash business?
I understand some of it tbh. Not the cars. A car is one and done, you manufacture it and you don’t NEED to spend much more after the fact to keep the happy new owner happy. There’s no way servers cost as much to run as they want for their cloud services (e.g remote start via app, unlock via app, etc). Before Tesla, cars didn’t really get software updates unless there were major issues.
But I’m starting to understand why the software industry adopted the service model. Having worked for multiple companies doing B2B SaaS… The customers just keep asking for new things. Does a meal planning app need to be a subscription service? Probably not. But anything that keeps on adding new features costs a lot of money. Software engineers aren’t cheap.
Of course my view may be skewed because it’s B2B, not software anyone would just download off an app store or website. At my different jobs we’ve had billion dollar companies come and say “we love what you’re doing, we want to keep using it, but you have to do X, Y and Z or our workflow just won’t work and we can’t use it efficiently”.
Also in the world of consumer facing software, nobody wants a big upfront payment, but people are more willing to stomach a small monthly subscription. We could do away with proprietary software altogether, but oftentimes what happens with open source software is that due to lack of funding, devs don’t have enough time to work on things, and they lag behind proprietary offerings. Large software suites like Adobe Premiere are never “finished” and thus neither are the open source alternatives. But Adobe has a ton more engineering resources to throw at improving their product than most open source projects.
TL;DR: Software engineering is expensive. People working open source projects are often doing it in their spare time after the work that actually pays their bills. If you want free and open source software to be competitive to paid subscription software, you gotta set up recurring donations and convince other people to do the same. At least it’ll be forkable, voluntary and democratic, unlike with proprietary software companies.
also in the world of consumer facing software, nobody wants a big upfront payment
I think this is a much bigger thing than people realize. Like it’s all great to say “I would pay much more for a one time payment”, but when it actually comes down to it most people won’t.
Look at something like Plex, they offer both a subscription as well as a one time purchase. But in 2023 (the newest data I could find) the subscriptions make up 84% of Plex’s entire revenue stream. And the plex lifetime subscription really isn’t that bad either, it’s only $120 and it’s supposed to go up to only (I know how y’all feel about it being “only”, I don’t care) $250 at the end of April. It’s really not that expensive for a lifetime cost.
The problem with the subscription model is that it doesn’t incentivize making improvements. If I buy a piece of software, I’m not going to buy the new version unless they make significant improvements. With a subscription model I have to continue paying for it even if they make no improvements to the software.
The customers just keep asking for new things. Does a meal planning app need to be a subscription service? Probably not. But anything that keeps on adding new features costs a lot of money. Software engineers aren’t cheap.
This is a problem of poor sales and marketing. The sales people should simply charge the customer for the changes that are asked for. Of course neither the sales people nor the customer understand the cost (they think it’s just pushing one button). Sales people tend to have too much influence in a company (like they bring in the money, not the product, and developers are a cost) and they’ll say yes to anything the customer asks for even if the customer may not even care all that much. But hey if this company is offering free software development services, why not take advantage of it?
A service model might make sense in some cases, but oftentimes it does not. Most definitely not in the consumer market, but we see that everywhere now.
Even before subscriptions became normalised cars had a support cost, parts and servicing, especially for genuine or genuine reconditioned parts.
Strictly speaking, you can avoid the dealers and the part costs by working with mechanics, wreckers or aftermarket manufacturers but those have extra costs and voided warranties.
Parts sales are a major income stream for manufacturers, especially as they need to compete on car sales, but once you’re locked in on that car they mark up the prices on the parts long term.
Though admittedly enshittification means worse and more expensive parts and legal threats to aftermarket manufacturers.
Its almost like low taxes and loose monetary policy leads to share buybacks and shittier products as the CPI reports rapid deflation and more share buybacks.
Actually it’s your own fault for buying Superproductname. You should have bought Supererproductname. You’d have known this is you’d put in two hours of research only to find out that Supererproductname was discontinued in 1919.
“You complain about the price of groceries yet you continue to buy them. How interesting 🙏🏼”
You joke, but staring at the shitty LG LED TV I bought a year ago, I get mad at how much research we have to do these days just to make sure we get the best <PRODUCT> possible for the budget we have.
Not that long ago you could walk into a TV show room, pick the best one they had that you could afford and that was that. We’d have our brand preferences, but by and large we could buy a TV that would last us ten years.
Now, in order to stand a chance of getting five years out of a product we have to do weeks of research, scour a bunch of forums, mentally having to vet out replies that feel like they’re shill accounts. We have to become miniature experts in every field where we need to spend money, and it’s just fucking exhausting.
In my case, I was labouring under the belief that LG make really good TVs. Turns out they make really good OLED TVs, but their LED panels suck balls. So within nine months of buying this panel, the backlight has become patchy as shit, and now I’m having to go through the bullshit of returning it in order to get a better one.
Honestly you still kinda can, just instead of going into the store, go to Rtings and just find the TV that is the size you want, has the features you want, and is currently the highest rated on the site.
They have incredible reviews that go into very minuscule detail which, if you aren’t a TV person, will mostly mean nothing to you. But look at the scores at the top of the review, and read the little blurb to make sure there aren’t any deal breakers for you. And then just order it from whichever big box store in your town has the best deal.
Hmm, let’s see, thanks to DEI, corporate America has spent the last 15 years hiring people based on their race instead of their qualifications, and you’re saying everything is starting to fall apart?
Curious.
What sort of evidence would it take to convince you that DEI programs have been a net positive for US businesses?
What was the evidence that convinced you?
“Diversity, Equity, or Inclusion”, which part don’t you understand? Companies encouraged different perspectives so they could reach a broader scope of people and make more money. No one’s hiring an inferior candidate to do worse work lol.
Now, using cheaper parts, subscription services for everything, customer lock-in, soldered-on, unrepairable parts, focusing only on short-term profits, removing survices while increasing prices… That race to the bottom all definitely contributed to this current “profit at all costs, screw the consumer” environment…
If DEI made companies more money it wouldn’t have to be legislated, would it. Anyone with a smidge of business sense would absolutely crush it by hiring all the people that racists routinely overlook.
DEI ensured that qualified minorities could not legally be passed over by racists in favor of UNqualified whites, as clearly you are. I would never offer you a job.
If capitalists are greedy for profit, why on earth would they hire unqualified people who look like them rather than qualified people who don’t?
Have you ever seen the qualifications of DEI candidates? People always say DEI, but always leave out the part that their resumes are often the best.
So we agree that America has been hiring based on race, and I’ll even go further and say its been for the last 250 years - but it’s for whites. Being white is not a merit-based qualification.
Also you think America has only been falling apart for the last 15 years? Did you just forget 1985-1993? This is a troll account, but at least make the bait believable - it’s pathetic.
That take is just lazy and stupid. DEI is about making sure qualified people aren’t overlooked because of bias. Businesses only care about making money, not some imaginary diversity quota that tanked everything. Which is why successful businesses like Costco and Apple voted to keep it. DEI isn’t affirmative action. Try again, but do better this time.
If DEI is what makes companies more successful, why does it have to be enforced? Capitalists are profit maximizers, so if there’s legit talent being overlooked by racist hiring practices, you’d expect someone with enough of a profit motive would go and hire them for cheaper to outdo the competition. Instead, it appears to be a luxury only super-successful companies can afford to maintain because it boosts their image, and everyone else has to be forced to participate.
I always appreciate another name to add to the block list. Get thee gone, thou vitriolic waste of bytes, thou fallacy-made-manifest, born of what can only be an unloving and deeply stupid progenitor.
If blocking me is the only argument you have, I’m afraid you have no argument at all.
Also, you’re proving that diversity and inclusion doesn’t work without excluding some people whose opinions you disagree with, which is by definition the suppression of a minority.
corporate America has spent the last 15 years hiring people based on their race instead of their qualifications
Wait, in what universe did that happen?
Bro what planet are you from?
I’M SO RACIST I THINK CAPITALISM WORKS!!! – You for some reason.
“I’m so retarded I think insulting people works” — you for some reason
Are you sure about that? Are you really? Because I’ve noticed a lot of CIS gendered Europeans at most of the high end engineering jobs I work at.
Well, someone has to do all the work to cover everyone’s paychecks
Apparently that book is from 1978. Exercise for the reader: find the similarities between 1978 and now…
going by the cover from top to bottom: spaceX, tesla, DOGE. hmm…
Graphic is missing images of computers & smarty-pants phones
Fucking. Like me need vehicle yet my dad as a 2021 that already needs a new transmission. My 2007 I already put 8k in to keep running but can’t do it anymore. Any fucking newer vars that just fucking run?
The same reason why the childhood treats like Hostess Twinkies and cakes and candy bars don’t taste good anymore. I originally blamed my tastebuds for the change, but now I believe it’s the enshittification of base ingredients, squeezing as much nostalgic goodwill and basic cravings for sugar/fat as possible out of ever-lower quality, cheaper basic materials in the name of profit margins, donations to conservative super PACs, and executive yachts.
I am sure that most of the cereals I’ve tried in recent years have changed since I was a child. Not for the better.
Everything. Even pet food, I can see the changes, the canned paté my cat enjoyed used to be like a terrine in the can, now it’s a loose watery mess.
Tastykake’s Butterscotch Krimpets changed overnight when they got bought. They’re mealy and don’t have enough butterscotch flavor.
I was just reading an article about how candy companies are trying to make GLP-1 (Ozempic) resistant candy that is effectively hyper-addicting and restarts the cycle of addiction.
Incredible how bad capitalism is for society and it’s affect on food processes in order to drive needless profits.
Holy shit, what? You got an article on that?
Ah, Coffiest is finally here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants
“In a vastly overpopulated world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge trans-national corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and by far the best-paid profession. Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market. Some of the products contain addictive substances designed to make consumers dependent on them. However, the most basic elements of life are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel.” This in 1952. Mad Men indeed.
I’m just sitting here laughing by myself in my miserable densified cardboard shack I live in.
A quote from the book:
“each sample of Coffiest contains three milligrams of a simple alkaloid. Nothing harmful. But definitely habit-forming. After ten weeks the customer is hooked for life. It would cost him at least five thousand dollars for a cure, so it’s simpler for him to go right on drinking Coffiest - three cups with every meal and a pot beside the bed at night, just as it says on the jar.”
finally, candy companies fighting drug companies
That should be illegal, wtf. Actually evil shit. No wonder people love Superhero movies when real life is filled with supervillains with no end in sight.
Oh definitely. Have you read In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. I’m halfway thru it now and it’s been incredibly eye-opening.
I mean, that’s part of it yes…
…but also overall food has gotten better, more diverse, with better flavorings, especially if you make it yourself.
So on one hand, a modern twinkie isn’t as good, but on the other hand, there’s far more tasty options than just a twinkie now. Hell, even those similarly styled and packaged Mexican treats (like a Bimbo Nito for example) appeal to me more than Hostess treats of any kind.
But I’d still rather go for something locally made that isn’t packaged and filled with preservatives. I am lucky to have some nice Mexican bakeries nearby.
Back in the late 20th century, Alton Brown mentioned how it might be hard to find things like soy sauce or ginger at grocery stores.
Again, we can blame Nixon and Reagan.
One of the things that corporations learned from the Oil Crisis is that the top executives could keep drawing a big salary even if the plants were off shore. Reagan enshrined the idea that as long as there was some guy in a suit pulling the strings, everything was fine and dandy.
X. E. Cution lol
Ghosthacked@lemm.ee 1 year ago
You fuckers thought capitalism was innovation. Enjoy your capitalism while you eat 30 dollar burgers on your 2000 dollar phones made in china that you watch shit tier cult programming on social media with.
Gotta toss your Galaxy Brain T89 next year for the Ultra version with 2000mp selfie cam