4 ms·

Why are centralized businesses doomed to fail? It’s been the primary organizational mode for the last 10,000 years.

by 7e 3y ago

grugagag 3y ago
Pressure to squeeze out profits continously until there’s nothing but a husk left.
- mr_00ff00 3y ago
  Except weren’t all these services running at a loss? How would smaller companies do better?
  - rglullis 3y ago
    By actually charging for their services? For every gmail, how many independent email providers do you think exist out there?
    - mr_00ff00 3y ago
      Right but isn’t that what they are claiming would drive people away from the big companies? Why would you choose to not pay for the big tech products and then pay for a smaller version?
      - rglullis 3y ago
        Because Big Tech demands big profits. They can not exist in worlds where they can not have a monopoly or oligopoly. Smaller companies and ISVs, on the other hand, will be better off if their market is commoditized. They won't have to spend so much to compete in R&D, they just need to find each the best way to serve their (comparatively) small customer base.
  - keldtin 3y ago
    The key here is that the environment of near-zero interest rates these services proliferated in is over, so there is a drive to wall up and monetize their content more aggressively. That will probably fail, because all value they had was in community interaction. Who would want to train an LLM on post-2023 twitter content?
    - Parmenidea 3y ago
      Why do you think ZIRP won’t come back eventually?
gpxyz 3y ago
Genuinely curious: which centralized businesses existed in 8000 BCE?
- z2h-a6n 3y ago
  And more to the point, what fraction of centralized businesses in the past 10,000 (or even 1,000, or even 100) years did not eventually fail?
  - roughly 3y ago
    As the saying goes, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid - everything eventually falls, but Twitter's not on the long side of "eventually" here.
  - djbusby 3y ago
    400 years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian_Company https://www.muroji.com/en/ https://www.muroji.com/en/
- Nemo_bis 3y ago
  I would bet that the first multinational organization to corner an intercontinental market was the apostolic church of Rome. If https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_international_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_international_trad... is right, the necessary technology for international trade was not available before 4000 BCE (horse riding ~3700 BCE, long-distance sea travel ~2000 BCE).
Dalewyn 3y ago
It's not centralized businesses that inevitably fail, it's businesses that become top dog that inevitably fail. If you own a company and want it to last through the ages and you aren't literally the only guy in town, never become number one. Aim high, but don't hit the top. The same can be said for countries and practically any organization or group. You stay an underdog if you do not want to ever fail.
- dizhn 3y ago
  This doesn't make intuitive sense. Are you sure you're not seeing the results of survivorship bias? Or is there a mechanism in place that kills top players?
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    It's because once you're top dog, you stop aiming high and start maintaining your top spot. You stop being ambitious and innovative, instead you start being anxious and wearing rose colored glasses. That leads to complacency, corruption, and delusion, ultimately leading to failure. Everyone and everything from mundane individuals to megacorporations and empires have all fallen from grace once they became top dog. No exceptions. If you want to last, aim high but don't become top dog.
roughly 3y ago
Two notes on this: One is that centralized _business_ has certainly not been the primary organizational mode. You can talk about centralized _government_ (of whatever variety you'd like), but the distinction there is that the centralized government had some sense of itself in an ecosystem - a citizenry, a land, a future, etc. - and businesses do not. The second is that centralized entities sure wrote a bunch of stuff _down_, but it's hard to say they were the primary organizational mode for any but the last 50-200 years - the reach of serious centralized bureaucracies has only really begun to match their propaganda in the industrial and now computer age. Until extremely recently, the actual effective reach of a centralized bureaucracy was a day's horseback ride - control degrades rapidly as one leaves the core. "Heaven is high and the emperor is far away", as the saying goes. Edit: With regards to the second note, "Against the Grain" by James C. Scott is a solid read.
hgs3 3y ago
> It’s been the primary organizational mode for the last 10,000 years. For most of human history, most businesses were small ma and pa shops operated by a few local people. These days large business chains are the norm. You could say that centralized big business killed the decentralized small ma and pa shops.

Why are centralized businesses doomed to fail? It’s been the primary organizational mode for the last 10,000 years.

by 7e 3y ago

Why are centralized businesses doomed to fail? It’s been the primary organizational mode for the last 10,000 years.

grugagag 3y ago

Pressure to squeeze out profits continously until there’s nothing but a husk left.

mr_00ff00 3y ago
Except weren’t all these services running at a loss? How would smaller companies do better?
- rglullis 3y ago
  By actually charging for their services? For every gmail, how many independent email providers do you think exist out there?
  - mr_00ff00 3y ago
    Right but isn’t that what they are claiming would drive people away from the big companies? Why would you choose to not pay for the big tech products and then pay for a smaller version?
    - rglullis 3y ago
      Because Big Tech demands big profits. They can not exist in worlds where they can not have a monopoly or oligopoly. Smaller companies and ISVs, on the other hand, will be better off if their market is commoditized. They won't have to spend so much to compete in R&D, they just need to find each the best way to serve their (comparatively) small customer base.
- keldtin 3y ago
  The key here is that the environment of near-zero interest rates these services proliferated in is over, so there is a drive to wall up and monetize their content more aggressively. That will probably fail, because all value they had was in community interaction. Who would want to train an LLM on post-2023 twitter content?
  - Parmenidea 3y ago
    Why do you think ZIRP won’t come back eventually?

gpxyz 3y ago

Genuinely curious: which centralized businesses existed in 8000 BCE?

z2h-a6n 3y ago
And more to the point, what fraction of centralized businesses in the past 10,000 (or even 1,000, or even 100) years did not eventually fail?
- roughly 3y ago
  As the saying goes, the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid - everything eventually falls, but Twitter's not on the long side of "eventually" here.
- djbusby 3y ago
  400 years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian_Company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avedis_Zildjian_Company https://www.muroji.com/en/ https://www.muroji.com/en/
Nemo_bis 3y ago
I would bet that the first multinational organization to corner an intercontinental market was the apostolic church of Rome. If https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_international_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_international_trad... is right, the necessary technology for international trade was not available before 4000 BCE (horse riding ~3700 BCE, long-distance sea travel ~2000 BCE).

Dalewyn 3y ago

It's not centralized businesses that inevitably fail, it's businesses that become top dog that inevitably fail. If you own a company and want it to last through the ages and you aren't literally the only guy in town, never become number one. Aim high, but don't hit the top. The same can be said for countries and practically any organization or group. You stay an underdog if you do not want to ever fail.

dizhn 3y ago
This doesn't make intuitive sense. Are you sure you're not seeing the results of survivorship bias? Or is there a mechanism in place that kills top players?
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  It's because once you're top dog, you stop aiming high and start maintaining your top spot. You stop being ambitious and innovative, instead you start being anxious and wearing rose colored glasses. That leads to complacency, corruption, and delusion, ultimately leading to failure. Everyone and everything from mundane individuals to megacorporations and empires have all fallen from grace once they became top dog. No exceptions. If you want to last, aim high but don't become top dog.

roughly 3y ago

Two notes on this: One is that centralized _business_ has certainly not been the primary organizational mode. You can talk about centralized _government_ (of whatever variety you'd like), but the distinction there is that the centralized government had some sense of itself in an ecosystem - a citizenry, a land, a future, etc. - and businesses do not. The second is that centralized entities sure wrote a bunch of stuff _down_, but it's hard to say they were the primary organizational mode for any but the last 50-200 years - the reach of serious centralized bureaucracies has only really begun to match their propaganda in the industrial and now computer age. Until extremely recently, the actual effective reach of a centralized bureaucracy was a day's horseback ride - control degrades rapidly as one leaves the core. "Heaven is high and the emperor is far away", as the saying goes. Edit: With regards to the second note, "Against the Grain" by James C. Scott is a solid read.

hgs3 3y ago

> It’s been the primary organizational mode for the last 10,000 years. For most of human history, most businesses were small ma and pa shops operated by a few local people. These days large business chains are the norm. You could say that centralized big business killed the decentralized small ma and pa shops.