The CEO of Meta says "the average American has fewer than three friends, fewer than three people they would consider friends. And the average person has demand for meaningfully more.”
Thing is, it’s not the dude. It’s the system that forces most dudes to keep coming up with new ways to make ever higher profit. If they don’t, they open the door to competition that would. Then their competitor could eventually overtake them, take their customers and profits, then do a hostile or peaceful purchase of the dude’s firm.
Why do you act like this is a bad thing? You just described how it’s supposed to work.
Look at Tom from MySpace. He had it all. Got overtaken by the competition. Now he just travels the world, takes pictures, and does whatever the fuck he wants.
Zuck is never going to want for a damn thing for the rest of his life. The fact that he hasn’t just fucked off to paradise is a Zuck problem.
Totally great for Tom in the short to medium term. Long term… maybe, if he finds an isolated self-sufficient place to spend the rest of his days. Either way he’ll be better off than the rest of us no matter what.
Not sure if sarcastic or I didn’t make my point well enough. Just in case I’ll expand. The bad thing is that the system necessitates ever increasing profits. It’s not the individuals. If Zuck fucks off to paradise Zuck Prime would take over the social media market and keep finding ways to grow profits year-on-year. The problem with ever increasing profit is this profit comes from the wages and time of people one way or another, leaving less for other social things like paying to meet friends, a partner, having and raising children. Multiply this process to most firms in most markets and you’ll soon see that this leads to social instability, unrest, crisis, and worse. Like it’s happened in the past in different places around the world. Today in the US, Big Tech does it, Big Ag does it, Big Grocer does it, Big Insurance does it, Big Landlord does it, Big Pharma does it, Big Entertainment does it, and increasingly larger proportion of the population gets squeezed out of time and money… for the basics or luxuries like friends and partners. And they’re not gonna take it laying down. Electing Trump was one salvo, even if counterproductive.
Yes this is how things are supposed to work in the system but my point is that it’s a) driven by the system, not individuals, and b) the consequences are unsustainable.
Yes, the continued consolidation of the economy into everything “Big” is the problem. Survival of the fittest only works as a core component of the economic philosophy if we allow firms to be out-competed and for market shifts to occur.
Ever-increasing profit is not a problem if a consummate increase in service or product quality comes along for the ride. This is how an economy expands. We all want this, even if it creates turbulence at the individual or community level.
Consolidating into entities that are too big to fail is a problem. Give me Zuck Prime. This is literally why we are all on Lemmy, is it not?
It’s the system that forces most dudes to keep coming up with new ways to make ever higher profit. If they don’t, they open the door to competition that would.
No, they can continue to make the same profit and still not open the door for competition. The need for ever-higher profits is driven by investors.
Thing is, it’s not the dude. It’s the system that forces most dudes to keep coming up with new ways to make ever higher profit. If they don’t, they open the door to competition that would. Then their competitor could eventually overtake them, take their customers and profits, then do a hostile or peaceful purchase of the dude’s firm.
Why do you act like this is a bad thing? You just described how it’s supposed to work.
Look at Tom from MySpace. He had it all. Got overtaken by the competition. Now he just travels the world, takes pictures, and does whatever the fuck he wants.
Zuck is never going to want for a damn thing for the rest of his life. The fact that he hasn’t just fucked off to paradise is a Zuck problem.
Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing for Tom, but it very much was bad for the rest of us that Facebook took over.
Totally great for Tom in the short to medium term. Long term… maybe, if he finds an isolated self-sufficient place to spend the rest of his days. Either way he’ll be better off than the rest of us no matter what.
Not sure if sarcastic or I didn’t make my point well enough. Just in case I’ll expand. The bad thing is that the system necessitates ever increasing profits. It’s not the individuals. If Zuck fucks off to paradise Zuck Prime would take over the social media market and keep finding ways to grow profits year-on-year. The problem with ever increasing profit is this profit comes from the wages and time of people one way or another, leaving less for other social things like paying to meet friends, a partner, having and raising children. Multiply this process to most firms in most markets and you’ll soon see that this leads to social instability, unrest, crisis, and worse. Like it’s happened in the past in different places around the world. Today in the US, Big Tech does it, Big Ag does it, Big Grocer does it, Big Insurance does it, Big Landlord does it, Big Pharma does it, Big Entertainment does it, and increasingly larger proportion of the population gets squeezed out of time and money… for the basics or luxuries like friends and partners. And they’re not gonna take it laying down. Electing Trump was one salvo, even if counterproductive.
Yes this is how things are supposed to work in the system but my point is that it’s a) driven by the system, not individuals, and b) the consequences are unsustainable.
Yes, the continued consolidation of the economy into everything “Big” is the problem. Survival of the fittest only works as a core component of the economic philosophy if we allow firms to be out-competed and for market shifts to occur.
Ever-increasing profit is not a problem if a consummate increase in service or product quality comes along for the ride. This is how an economy expands. We all want this, even if it creates turbulence at the individual or community level.
Consolidating into entities that are too big to fail is a problem. Give me Zuck Prime. This is literally why we are all on Lemmy, is it not?
Yeah I can see what you’re getting at here and I agree.
No, they can continue to make the same profit and still not open the door for competition. The need for ever-higher profits is driven by investors.
Does he really need to do that though? Isn’t he the majority shareholder and he can essentially do what he wants?
When ya put it like that, it makes capitalism sound kinda like Roko’s Basilisk.
It’s the dude. He fucking built the system.