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VC-driven Silicon Valley innovation is directly aimed at making money. The fact that money making overlaps significantly with oppressing the underclass is not
by api 9y ago
VC-driven Silicon Valley innovation is directly aimed at making money.
The fact that money making overlaps significantly with oppressing the underclass is not the fault of Silicon Valley, though SV isn't doing anything to help. It's a side effect of the fact that we are in an extremely demand constrained economy.
Demand constrained economy is a fancy pants way of saying "everyone is broke so they can't buy anything so why make anything for people to buy?" Below the upper middle class, nobody has any expendable income. That means there are few customers for things designed... well... for customers. That means entrepreneurs can't make money selling things to people unless they're luxury goods, and that's a tough market to break into. (Juciero wasn't such a dumb idea from this perspective. VCs aren't stupid. It was a gamble on creating a new luxury market for the top ~10%. Better executed it might have succeeded.)
As a result Silicon Valley (along with every other industry) must turn elsewhere for customers. Elsewhere is advertisers, propagandists, oppressive regimes, etc., hence surveillance capitalism. The other alternative is to try to find ways to crush margin ("disrupt" as its been redefined to mean) out of some existing industry, which usually means slashing wages and killing jobs and ultimately making the demand constrained economy problem worse.
The ultimate blame for this situation goes to Washington for pushing supply side economics in a demand constrained economy and to New York for abandoning productive capitalism in favor of financial gambling and bubble inflation.
- platz 9y agoQuite right. Both can be true - it's not either-or. I encourage you to watch the talk, if you're willing to stomach his gen-x sensibility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2O_fxmrP_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2O_fxmrP_Q . > that means entrepreneurs can't make money selling things to people unless they're luxury goods "[Moore's law] is ending. It hasn't quite ended yet, but in ten years it'll be obvious that it's over. Apple is selling jewelry. That's what they sell. And there is no singularity of California. There is.. I mean Intel could not make it pay. I mean I saw them struggle to keep Moore's law alive.. they were heroes about it - it didn't work." . > The ultimate blame for this situation goes to Washington for pushing supply side economics in a demand constrained economy "The mausoleum for Moore's law. They couldn't make it pay under the Washington Consensus, and their version of global neo-liberalism. They just couldn't make it pay. So now Silicon Valley is becoming Detroit, because that's the logic of American industrial development. Tech has lost its charmed life. Even the Apple AppStore has died. It's quite like the space race after the American moon landing, or it's quite like the end of a Californian Gold Rush. This is California's DNA, and time passes for everyone, and consequences always arise. Stuff that seems revolutionary and disruptive in 2017 is mostly frills for rich people."
- stcredzero 9y agoIt's quite like the space race after the American moon landing, or it's quite like the end of a Californian Gold Rush. This is California's DNA, and time passes for everyone, and consequences always arise. Do you happen to know that California is still dealing with the environmental effects of the gold rush?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]