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As I keep saying: there’s nothing more dangerous than a company (or department in this case) that was once wildly profitable and is now merely profitable. It’s

As I keep saying: there’s nothing more dangerous than a company (or department in this case) that was once wildly profitable and is now merely profitable. It’s absurd that even at places like Google, which has effectively infinite money, there’s still this present attitude of not being able to afford paying workers. Nuts.

RIMR 5y ago
It's not that they don't think they can afford to pay fairly. It's that the decision makers are incentivized to cut every possible cost and are rewarded for it with multimillion dollar bonuses.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Yes, you’re right. I worded my post for the sake of glibness and not clarity. I think what’s particularly fascinating is not the relentless drive for more profits, that’s been hashed to death and I have nothing original to offer here, but how the internal narrative of “we can’t afford to pay them” holds in cases where it’s transparent bullshit. Of course Google can afford to pay its temp workers a fair wage, and of course they don’t want to. It’s just surprising that the story they tell themselves is so trivially falsifiable.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
beepbooptheory 5y ago
Its not really "dangerous" only because that wording implies another state of possible affairs that could be safer. unfortunately, ceteris paribus, the tendency of a rate of profit to ultimately slow is one of the costs of a free market, there is not really a way out of it long term!
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  > Its not really "dangerous" only because that wording implies another state of possible affairs that could be safer. I generally use this phrase in the context of companies being willing to do anything to get back to being wildly profitable. And in that case, yes, there is quite a bit of danger towards basically everyone else.
- worik 5y ago
  Where is this thing called "Free Market"?
  - stadium 5y ago
    Competition from Facebook and now Amazon ad businesses eating away at profit margins
  - specialist 5y ago
    I was recently reminded that Milton Friedman -- profit, err, prophet of Freedom Markets™ -- actively eschewed empiricism. It's not that these sages didn't understand. They refused. They actively rejected understanding. Our epistemological crisis, where we don't even have a shared reality, has ancient roots.
abdabab 5y ago
Maybe you were talking about other companies. Google is still wildly profitable. > the company just set an all-time record revenue of $61.9 billion this quarter, and record profits for the fourth quarter in a row at $18.5 billion. From https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/27/22596592/google-q2-2021-record-revenue-profit-youtube-ad-cloud-search https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/27/22596592/google-q2-2021-r...
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  “Or department” Regardless, the fear of marginally reducing profits drives companies to do a bunch of things that are fundamentally pretty gross.
- stephenhuey 5y ago
  Wow, at what point do their profits balloon enough that Google's moat is no longer intimidating enough to fend off a gold rush of people willing to pour heaps of money and ingenuity into outdoing their search product? I've been searching with Google since the beginning and it definitely feels worse than in the days of yore, yet they make more money than ever...
  - dannyobrien 5y ago
    They don't make money at search, they make money on advertising.
    - chalst 5y ago
      Yes, a moat is not a profit centre, it is a cost centre. You appear to have misunderstood the point you replied to.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    Who has access to the amount of data that Google does? Microsoft and Apple come to mind, but they are already profitable for their own reasons so may not want to risk their current profit centers doing the "shady" work Google is known for (not necessarily saying Google is evil/shady, but their products have a reputation).
CamperBob2 5y ago
You know what they say, though... you don't get infinite money by cutting a lot of checks.
jollybean 5y ago
Google is wildly profitable. It's understandable that a company, crunched for cash, ends up in odd situations. It's not acceptable when you're sitting on mountains of cash - and - claim to have some kind of moral situation in commerce.
chobeat 5y ago
They are profitable exactly because they don't pay workers the worth they produce. Profit is literally that.
- bregma 5y ago
  Profit is the difference between the cost to produce a good or service and the revenue generated from it. Cost of labour is just one aspect of the cost to produce a good or service. Google is exploitative because they don't fully compensate the value of labour used in production. This is wrong and damnable and illegal in any reasonable jurisdiction. Google is profitable. This is not wrong and commendable in most places. The concepts should not be conflated.

RIMR 5y ago

It's not that they don't think they can afford to pay fairly. It's that the decision makers are incentivized to cut every possible cost and are rewarded for it with multimillion dollar bonuses.

ashtonkem 5y ago
Yes, you’re right. I worded my post for the sake of glibness and not clarity. I think what’s particularly fascinating is not the relentless drive for more profits, that’s been hashed to death and I have nothing original to offer here, but how the internal narrative of “we can’t afford to pay them” holds in cases where it’s transparent bullshit. Of course Google can afford to pay its temp workers a fair wage, and of course they don’t want to. It’s just surprising that the story they tell themselves is so trivially falsifiable.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

beepbooptheory 5y ago

Its not really "dangerous" only because that wording implies another state of possible affairs that could be safer. unfortunately, ceteris paribus, the tendency of a rate of profit to ultimately slow is one of the costs of a free market, there is not really a way out of it long term!

ashtonkem 5y ago
> Its not really "dangerous" only because that wording implies another state of possible affairs that could be safer. I generally use this phrase in the context of companies being willing to do anything to get back to being wildly profitable. And in that case, yes, there is quite a bit of danger towards basically everyone else.
worik 5y ago
Where is this thing called "Free Market"?
- stadium 5y ago
  Competition from Facebook and now Amazon ad businesses eating away at profit margins
- specialist 5y ago
  I was recently reminded that Milton Friedman -- profit, err, prophet of Freedom Markets™ -- actively eschewed empiricism. It's not that these sages didn't understand. They refused. They actively rejected understanding. Our epistemological crisis, where we don't even have a shared reality, has ancient roots.

abdabab 5y ago

Maybe you were talking about other companies. Google is still wildly profitable. > the company just set an all-time record revenue of $61.9 billion this quarter, and record profits for the fourth quarter in a row at $18.5 billion. From https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/27/22596592/google-q2-2021-record-revenue-profit-youtube-ad-cloud-search https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/27/22596592/google-q2-2021-r...

ashtonkem 5y ago
“Or department” Regardless, the fear of marginally reducing profits drives companies to do a bunch of things that are fundamentally pretty gross.
stephenhuey 5y ago
Wow, at what point do their profits balloon enough that Google's moat is no longer intimidating enough to fend off a gold rush of people willing to pour heaps of money and ingenuity into outdoing their search product? I've been searching with Google since the beginning and it definitely feels worse than in the days of yore, yet they make more money than ever...
- dannyobrien 5y ago
  They don't make money at search, they make money on advertising.
  - chalst 5y ago
    Yes, a moat is not a profit centre, it is a cost centre. You appear to have misunderstood the point you replied to.
- CameronNemo 5y ago
  Who has access to the amount of data that Google does? Microsoft and Apple come to mind, but they are already profitable for their own reasons so may not want to risk their current profit centers doing the "shady" work Google is known for (not necessarily saying Google is evil/shady, but their products have a reputation).

CamperBob2 5y ago

You know what they say, though... you don't get infinite money by cutting a lot of checks.

jollybean 5y ago

Google is wildly profitable. It's understandable that a company, crunched for cash, ends up in odd situations. It's not acceptable when you're sitting on mountains of cash - and - claim to have some kind of moral situation in commerce.

chobeat 5y ago

They are profitable exactly because they don't pay workers the worth they produce. Profit is literally that.

bregma 5y ago
Profit is the difference between the cost to produce a good or service and the revenue generated from it. Cost of labour is just one aspect of the cost to produce a good or service. Google is exploitative because they don't fully compensate the value of labour used in production. This is wrong and damnable and illegal in any reasonable jurisdiction. Google is profitable. This is not wrong and commendable in most places. The concepts should not be conflated.