5 ms·

> I wish more businesses could be content to just get to the point where they are making money, and then just keep making that much money and being ok with that

> I wish more businesses could be content to just get to the point where they are making money, and then just keep making that much money and being ok with that. Blame execs and CEOs and boards for not being content

southerntofu 5y ago
Blame capitalism for aiming for profit, not actual service to people.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Yep, it goes one level abive execs. Execs who don't do these things get replaced! The shareholder model is broken.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    What is broken about it? Did anyone tell the discord creators to involve other shareholders?
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      I don't know about Discord specifically, but what is broken is that the people who have ultimate control of large public companies (in 90% of cases - founder controlled companies are a prominent exception) are the shareholders. And these are typically not domain experts, their main interest is in making money. So they generally see fit to appoint executives whose main objective is to make money and to remove those who care about anything else. Now, you might think that this still aligns shareholder incentives with the long-term interests of the company, that if the shareholders care about profits over the long term then they should also care about the health of the business rather than just about how much money they are making now. The problem is that the most efficient way for investors to make money (per unit time) is not to care about the long term and instead to "pump and dump" companies by directing them towards (usually destructive) activities that increase profits in the short term, then selling the shares before the value inevitably crashes. Not everyone is doing that. But those who are often making the most money, and as money = power in capitalist economy, the people who are doing this are continually increasing their control of our companies over time. As such, the system is setup to give power to those who are most destructive to real value creation. Ergo: broken.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        > but what is broken is that the people who have ultimate control of large public companies (in 90% of cases - founder controlled companies are a prominent exception) are the shareholders. And these are typically not domain experts, their main interest is in making money. So they generally see fit to appoint executives whose main objective is to make money and to remove those who care about anything else. What alternatives are there? > Not everyone is doing that. But those who are often making the most money, and as money = power in capitalist economy, the people who are doing this are continually increasing their control of our companies over time. The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.
        nicoburns 5y ago
        > What alternatives are there? Worker representation on boards is one example. Imagine if the board of public companies was 50% shareholders and 50% workers. > The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement. The most profitable companies yes, but not necessarily the ones making the most money for their investors. Part of this pattern is that the companies typically end up dying a slow and painful death, meaning that they never get to be as big as the largest companies. But money in investing is made on change in value/profits, not on profits themselves. I guess I would say that the pattern I have described doesn't describe the entire economy. There is more traditional long-term investing going on too. But it's there. And it's harmful.
        vimy 5y ago
        Nothing stops workers right now to buy shares and appoint someone to the board.
        mahogany 5y ago
        On the contrary, something very obvious stops workers from buying enough shares to appoint someone to the board: access to capital. What you say is true in theory, I suppose, but is far from true in practice for any reasonably-sized publicly-traded company. How can an average worker at Walmart practically voice any opinion via shares?
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Not specific to discord, but what's broken is that work is organized to maximize personal profit of shareholders (and the remuneration and other privileges of managers), not to benefit users/society. I'm not against people profiting from their activity, in the broad sense of the word (though i'm personally opposed to money as a tool/concept). But profit-driven social organization has lead to many avoidable disasters: security in tech, safety in buildings/planes, low durability of products and planned obsolescence, impeding ecological disaster and the next massive extinction of species... As a species, we have enough production capacity to make sure everyone is well-off, yet a tiny minority grabs resources and ensures most of it is wasted and thrown away (see food/housing supply vs needs). Capitalism is the name of the system which holds such properties as virtuous, and it has proved to be a failed model in many regards over the centuries.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        What is the better alternative? I have not heard of a society that has succeeded to incentive people on a large scale without the possibility of profit. Note that the context of this conversation is someone blaming capitalism for Discord becoming bloated because Discord’s founders have a goal of increasing their wealth. It seems alternatives to Discord exist for users that do not wish for this bloat, but users do not want to do the work of hosting it (e.g. teamspeak/ventrilo/matrix). So what I am wondering is where the obligation for someone else to host these online services comes in, and why they “should” not have the goal of increasing their wealth in exchange for doing the work of hosting and servi the online services.
        arvinsim 5y ago
        > What is the better alternative? I have not heard of a society that has succeeded to incentive people on a large scale without the possibility of profit. Have society really taken on learned helplessness on a mass scale? In a sense that everyone has a defeatist attitude of "we can't think of any system better than current capitalism so why change?" Or is it more probable that there are some vested interest in keeping the status quo?
- foxpurple 5y ago
  Capitalism has done an exceptional job though for instant messaging. Discord is an incredible bit of software and through just being better, it has won the market. It’s basically a picture perfect example of the market working.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    > It’s basically a picture perfect example of the market working. Yet most times across all fields, better technical approaches are shutdown due to misaligned economic incentives. So while this is an example of the market working, its fame is due to going against the trend of profitable crappy engineering and planned obsolescence that plague industries. EDIT: We could also argue that accounting for "privacy" and "autonomy", Discord is not a good solution to the group communications problem and therefore the market is not working.
- lolsal 5y ago
  You're welcome to start your own altruistic chat service for the people, if you'd like.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    I know a lot of people who do that using IRC/XMPP/Matrix protocols, and contribute to the joinjabber.org website. That i'm free not to exploit people is not the point, the point is that nobody should be "free" (in capitalist newspeak) to exploit other people.

southerntofu 5y ago

Blame capitalism for aiming for profit, not actual service to people.

nicoburns 5y ago
Yep, it goes one level abive execs. Execs who don't do these things get replaced! The shareholder model is broken.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  What is broken about it? Did anyone tell the discord creators to involve other shareholders?
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    I don't know about Discord specifically, but what is broken is that the people who have ultimate control of large public companies (in 90% of cases - founder controlled companies are a prominent exception) are the shareholders. And these are typically not domain experts, their main interest is in making money. So they generally see fit to appoint executives whose main objective is to make money and to remove those who care about anything else. Now, you might think that this still aligns shareholder incentives with the long-term interests of the company, that if the shareholders care about profits over the long term then they should also care about the health of the business rather than just about how much money they are making now. The problem is that the most efficient way for investors to make money (per unit time) is not to care about the long term and instead to "pump and dump" companies by directing them towards (usually destructive) activities that increase profits in the short term, then selling the shares before the value inevitably crashes. Not everyone is doing that. But those who are often making the most money, and as money = power in capitalist economy, the people who are doing this are continually increasing their control of our companies over time. As such, the system is setup to give power to those who are most destructive to real value creation. Ergo: broken.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      > but what is broken is that the people who have ultimate control of large public companies (in 90% of cases - founder controlled companies are a prominent exception) are the shareholders. And these are typically not domain experts, their main interest is in making money. So they generally see fit to appoint executives whose main objective is to make money and to remove those who care about anything else. What alternatives are there? > Not everyone is doing that. But those who are often making the most money, and as money = power in capitalist economy, the people who are doing this are continually increasing their control of our companies over time. The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        > What alternatives are there? Worker representation on boards is one example. Imagine if the board of public companies was 50% shareholders and 50% workers. > The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement. The most profitable companies yes, but not necessarily the ones making the most money for their investors. Part of this pattern is that the companies typically end up dying a slow and painful death, meaning that they never get to be as big as the largest companies. But money in investing is made on change in value/profits, not on profits themselves. I guess I would say that the pattern I have described doesn't describe the entire economy. There is more traditional long-term investing going on too. But it's there. And it's harmful.
        vimy 5y ago
        Nothing stops workers right now to buy shares and appoint someone to the board.
        mahogany 5y ago
        On the contrary, something very obvious stops workers from buying enough shares to appoint someone to the board: access to capital. What you say is true in theory, I suppose, but is far from true in practice for any reasonably-sized publicly-traded company. How can an average worker at Walmart practically voice any opinion via shares?
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Not specific to discord, but what's broken is that work is organized to maximize personal profit of shareholders (and the remuneration and other privileges of managers), not to benefit users/society. I'm not against people profiting from their activity, in the broad sense of the word (though i'm personally opposed to money as a tool/concept). But profit-driven social organization has lead to many avoidable disasters: security in tech, safety in buildings/planes, low durability of products and planned obsolescence, impeding ecological disaster and the next massive extinction of species... As a species, we have enough production capacity to make sure everyone is well-off, yet a tiny minority grabs resources and ensures most of it is wasted and thrown away (see food/housing supply vs needs). Capitalism is the name of the system which holds such properties as virtuous, and it has proved to be a failed model in many regards over the centuries.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      What is the better alternative? I have not heard of a society that has succeeded to incentive people on a large scale without the possibility of profit. Note that the context of this conversation is someone blaming capitalism for Discord becoming bloated because Discord’s founders have a goal of increasing their wealth. It seems alternatives to Discord exist for users that do not wish for this bloat, but users do not want to do the work of hosting it (e.g. teamspeak/ventrilo/matrix). So what I am wondering is where the obligation for someone else to host these online services comes in, and why they “should” not have the goal of increasing their wealth in exchange for doing the work of hosting and servi the online services.
      - arvinsim 5y ago
        > What is the better alternative? I have not heard of a society that has succeeded to incentive people on a large scale without the possibility of profit. Have society really taken on learned helplessness on a mass scale? In a sense that everyone has a defeatist attitude of "we can't think of any system better than current capitalism so why change?" Or is it more probable that there are some vested interest in keeping the status quo?
foxpurple 5y ago
Capitalism has done an exceptional job though for instant messaging. Discord is an incredible bit of software and through just being better, it has won the market. It’s basically a picture perfect example of the market working.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > It’s basically a picture perfect example of the market working. Yet most times across all fields, better technical approaches are shutdown due to misaligned economic incentives. So while this is an example of the market working, its fame is due to going against the trend of profitable crappy engineering and planned obsolescence that plague industries. EDIT: We could also argue that accounting for "privacy" and "autonomy", Discord is not a good solution to the group communications problem and therefore the market is not working.
lolsal 5y ago
You're welcome to start your own altruistic chat service for the people, if you'd like.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  I know a lot of people who do that using IRC/XMPP/Matrix protocols, and contribute to the joinjabber.org website. That i'm free not to exploit people is not the point, the point is that nobody should be "free" (in capitalist newspeak) to exploit other people.