5 ms·

> It makes me despair of business models which require growth to be chased at all costs. I wish more businesses could be content to just get to the point where

by antris 5y ago

> It makes me despair of business models which require growth to be chased at all costs. 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 really wish anti-capitalist sentiment would grow louder in IT. This is pretty much capitalist critique 101. Companies chasing profit are often blind not only to the negative effects of their businesses, but even to the needs of their customers. It's extremely difficult for companies to stay content in their current business model without growing. If the company is not willing to be sold to a larger company, a larger company (often FAANG) will pump nearly limitless capital into building a free competitor that will eat your userbase. This happens over and over again, so it's not very practical to just say "companies should stay where they are good at". The system disincentivizes this, and companies staying still will always get knocked down. We need a systemic change.

nhumrich 5y ago
> blind to the needs of their customers Idk, one could argue that if doing so increases profits, then on average, you actually solved the needs of your customers. Sometimes that means replacing one customer with another whos willing to pay more.
- antris 5y ago
  > one could argue that if doing so increases profits, then on average, you actually solved the needs of your customers Which often isn't the case. Companies have lots of priorities that have nothing to do with end users at all. For example: - it does not matter how good your product is, if your company dies because there's a competitor that does not need to make profit and can temporarily offer their services for free, until your company is driven out of the market - dark patterns are well documented examples how working directly against good user experience can increase profits - lobbying politicians to drive out competition is extremely profitable, and does not take interests of the userbase into account at all There are probably numerous other, obvious examples how capitalism disincentivises companies from serving their customers well, but instead incentivizes gaming the system. The correlation between user experience and profitability is shaky at best. One could argue that user experience has almost nothing to with how businesses operate.
  - darepublic 5y ago
    > capitalism disincentivises companies from serving their customers well, but instead incentivizes gaming the system. If there is a system, people will try to game it. Whether in capitalism or communism or any other system of rules.
    - antris 5y ago
      Of course. But I'm talking about being rewarded due to inherent rewards associated in the system by gaming it. There is a difference between a system that punishes bad behavior vs. a system that rewards it.
      - darepublic 5y ago
        different systems will punish / reward different kinds of bad behaviour so its tit for tat. the only system that could uniformly punish bad behaviour and reward good would be one controlled by a god like being.
        antris 5y ago
        No system is perfect, of course, but I do think the people need a stronger democratic voice. A few big consolidated megacorporations make countless non-democratic decisions that affect huge amounts of people. Companies having are too much power in our society, considering that their motives mainly with the shareholders, not the population as a whole. I think we could at least do a bit better on it, even if its through slow reforms. Politics is probably complicated enough subject that I doubt we'll ever be perfect at it, but at least we could do a better job in mitigating their worst behaviours through legislation? I mean, the ultra-rich don't even pay any taxes, how fair is that?

by antris 5y ago

nhumrich 5y ago

> blind to the needs of their customers Idk, one could argue that if doing so increases profits, then on average, you actually solved the needs of your customers. Sometimes that means replacing one customer with another whos willing to pay more.

antris 5y ago
> one could argue that if doing so increases profits, then on average, you actually solved the needs of your customers Which often isn't the case. Companies have lots of priorities that have nothing to do with end users at all. For example: - it does not matter how good your product is, if your company dies because there's a competitor that does not need to make profit and can temporarily offer their services for free, until your company is driven out of the market - dark patterns are well documented examples how working directly against good user experience can increase profits - lobbying politicians to drive out competition is extremely profitable, and does not take interests of the userbase into account at all There are probably numerous other, obvious examples how capitalism disincentivises companies from serving their customers well, but instead incentivizes gaming the system. The correlation between user experience and profitability is shaky at best. One could argue that user experience has almost nothing to with how businesses operate.
- darepublic 5y ago
  > capitalism disincentivises companies from serving their customers well, but instead incentivizes gaming the system. If there is a system, people will try to game it. Whether in capitalism or communism or any other system of rules.
  - antris 5y ago
    Of course. But I'm talking about being rewarded due to inherent rewards associated in the system by gaming it. There is a difference between a system that punishes bad behavior vs. a system that rewards it.
    - darepublic 5y ago
      different systems will punish / reward different kinds of bad behaviour so its tit for tat. the only system that could uniformly punish bad behaviour and reward good would be one controlled by a god like being.
      - antris 5y ago
        No system is perfect, of course, but I do think the people need a stronger democratic voice. A few big consolidated megacorporations make countless non-democratic decisions that affect huge amounts of people. Companies having are too much power in our society, considering that their motives mainly with the shareholders, not the population as a whole. I think we could at least do a bit better on it, even if its through slow reforms. Politics is probably complicated enough subject that I doubt we'll ever be perfect at it, but at least we could do a better job in mitigating their worst behaviours through legislation? I mean, the ultra-rich don't even pay any taxes, how fair is that?