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What do we do with all that productivity gain though? Back in the days of "swap money for product" capitalism the answer was "more product, yay", but now a cons
by usrusr 4y ago
What do we do with all that productivity gain though? Back in the days of "swap money for product" capitalism the answer was "more product, yay", but now a considerable part of the economy is completely disconnected from that mechanism and is only competing in the zero sum game of visibility as a service. If Facebook employees magically got 48h per work day all we would get were steeper walls in the dopamine traps we already have. And given the resource constrained nature of life in a gravity well, even the old "more product, yay" isn't quite as yay as we used to think.
Edit: sorry, I completely lost myself on a sidetrack
Actually I believe that your assessment is spot on, only that I would weigh the drawbacks a little different, in particular everything that involves new hires, even more in particular those new hires who are new to the field. This is a long term cost that is very difficult to predict: how will "second generation" remotes work? Is there hidden knowledge implicitly present in those who started in person that can diffuse from formerly present to pure remotes, but not from one pure remote to another?
- glass3 4y agoRegarding you sidetrack: When you swap money for products, you don't need time. If the economy shifts to visibility and attention, instant transactions are not possible anymore. Whatever people produce, somebody needs time to consume it. So all the productivity gains will be used to create more audience.
- usrusr 4y agoBut all that attention mining is still just a pyramid of "VaaS" upon "VaaS" that isn't turtles all the way down: even if all the advertisers on your ad medium seem to be other ad media (where you might very well be a customer yourself!) or products that have no use outside of ad and attention production, at some point there has to be an influx of money from the advertising to consumers, in the old-fashioned "exchange money for product" way. Every other transaction is just some echo of that (even of its an echo not constrained by chronological order). And attention has a hard limit of 24h/day. Things might to to eleven, but not much further.