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I agree that there are likely negative social consequences from inflation, but the idea that inflation is the reason a business can't reach a steady-state becau
by XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
I agree that there are likely negative social consequences from inflation, but the idea that inflation is the reason a business can't reach a steady-state because of inflation seems to ignore Red Queen[1] like affects.
Something I've noticed a lot in tech is that companies will spend a huge amount of money to push new features that aren't core to the business and to launch new products that frequently fail. I've always viewed these as attempting to prevent competition from emerging rather than trying to compensate for inflation.
- api 9y agoNo idea why you are being downvoted. A Red Queen's Race is exactly what's going on. Even without much currency inflation there is constant pressure for businesses to outgrow each other because... well... everyone else is doing it! It's exactly like the constant arms race that occurs between nations and forces them to constantly spend trillions of dollars on weapons that will mostly never be used.
- digi_owl 9y agoFrankly i see the pressure coming from the financial world. There is a massive, blinding, focus on quarterly profits and dividends. This leads to all kinds of hype cycles and cargo cults to try to goose the stock price, no matter how hail mary or unhealthy it is for the corporation in the long term.
- api 9y agoThat is also a Red Queen's Race. It's a blinding focus on quarterly profits all the way up, and down.
- codetrotter 9y agoYou forgot to include the link you were going to reference.
- bproven 9y agoThis is the reference AFAIK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y agomy bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis