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I'm my personal opinion stuff like this are increasingly happening since MBAs started running every kind of companies, not only financial ones. It seems to me

I'm my personal opinion stuff like this are increasingly happening since MBAs started running every kind of companies, not only financial ones. It seems to me that they push for some short term profit to get bonuses and promotions and then move to do the same things elsewhere. However, it could also be a personal selection or survivor bias in my memory (I remember stuff like that more). Nevertheless, it really feels that very few companies optimize for the long run by prioritizing user satisfaction or similar metrics.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
Outside incentives line up with that too. Most investors seem to want quick gains, not steady growth.
- bcrosby95 3y ago
  Things like 401ks are the biggest trick wall street pulled on the public at large. Now they don't need to defend their actions because many in the public are financially incentivized to defend them. It's not a sin if its done in the name of making my stock go up.
  - Loughla 3y ago
    I hear you, but I just can't be convinced that was a motivator. The main motivator, I believe, was to drive costs WAY down by eliminating pensions while shifting that burden to the workers. I guess what I'm saying is, the golden shields were just a happy accident of other terrible behaviors?
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    I heard this same kind of justification used by a CEO in a former workplace. I stood there thinking "I'm a multi-year permatemp with no 401k. Shove this BS and give me a good paying job so that I can put money toward retirement."; didn't say anything though.
Workaccount2 3y ago
It's almost purely because of the connectedness and software-eats-the-world society we have today. Before it wasn't practical or even possible to withhold total ownership from consumers, but as soon as it was, corps jumped on it.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  This. And software developers are helping to make the dystopia real.
  - nobodyandproud 3y ago
    This has been ongoing for at least 40 years. For national security concerns alone, I’d wish we could incentivize growth by years and decades. The knowledge loss alone is alarming.
- tacocataco 3y ago
  "They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air – or of the money to buy it – even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it’s right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: “It’s Their Land,” “It’s Their Water,” “It’s Their Coal,” “It’s Their Iron,” so you would say “It’s Their Air,” “These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?” And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on “Christian Duty” in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you’ll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to “justice” in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.’ Robert Tressell, The Ragged-Trousered Philathropists (1914) | Ch 15
dontlaugh 3y ago
It’s at least partly due to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time. To maintain or increase profits, it becomes necessary to exploit workers more to reduce costs and to prevent competition to increase prices.

brucethemoose2 3y ago

Outside incentives line up with that too. Most investors seem to want quick gains, not steady growth.

bcrosby95 3y ago
Things like 401ks are the biggest trick wall street pulled on the public at large. Now they don't need to defend their actions because many in the public are financially incentivized to defend them. It's not a sin if its done in the name of making my stock go up.
- Loughla 3y ago
  I hear you, but I just can't be convinced that was a motivator. The main motivator, I believe, was to drive costs WAY down by eliminating pensions while shifting that burden to the workers. I guess what I'm saying is, the golden shields were just a happy accident of other terrible behaviors?
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  I heard this same kind of justification used by a CEO in a former workplace. I stood there thinking "I'm a multi-year permatemp with no 401k. Shove this BS and give me a good paying job so that I can put money toward retirement."; didn't say anything though.

Workaccount2 3y ago

It's almost purely because of the connectedness and software-eats-the-world society we have today. Before it wasn't practical or even possible to withhold total ownership from consumers, but as soon as it was, corps jumped on it.

JohnFen 3y ago
This. And software developers are helping to make the dystopia real.
- nobodyandproud 3y ago
  This has been ongoing for at least 40 years. For national security concerns alone, I’d wish we could incentivize growth by years and decades. The knowledge loss alone is alarming.
tacocataco 3y ago
"They have monopolized everything that it is possible to monopolize; they have got the whole earth, the minerals in the earth and the streams that water the earth. The only reason they have not monopolized the daylight and the air is that it is not possible to do it. If it were possible to construct huge gasometers and to draw together and compress within them the whole of the atmosphere, it would have been done long ago, and we should have been compelled to work for them in order to get money to buy air to breathe. And if that seemingly impossible thing were accomplished tomorrow, you would see thousands of people dying for want of air – or of the money to buy it – even as now thousands are dying for want of the other necessities of life. You would see people going about gasping for breath, and telling each other that the likes of them could not expect to have air to breathe unless the had the money to pay for it. Most of you here, for instance, would think and say so. Even as you think at present that it’s right for so few people to own the Earth, the Minerals and the Water, which are all just as necessary as is the air. In exactly the same spirit as you now say: “It’s Their Land,” “It’s Their Water,” “It’s Their Coal,” “It’s Their Iron,” so you would say “It’s Their Air,” “These are their gasometers, and what right have the likes of us to expect them to allow us to breathe for nothing?” And even while he is doing this the air monopolist will be preaching sermons on the Brotherhood of Man; he will be dispensing advice on “Christian Duty” in the Sunday magazines; he will give utterance to numerous more or less moral maxims for the guidance of the young. And meantime, all around, people will be dying for want of some of the air that he will have bottled up in his gasometers. And when you are all dragging out a miserable existence, gasping for breath or dying for want of air, if one of your number suggests smashing a hole in the side of one of the gasometers, you will all fall upon him in the name of law and order, and after doing your best to tear him limb from limb, you’ll drag him, covered with blood, in triumph to the nearest Police Station and deliver him up to “justice” in the hope of being given a few half-pounds of air for your trouble.’ Robert Tressell, The Ragged-Trousered Philathropists (1914) | Ch 15

dontlaugh 3y ago

It’s at least partly due to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall over time. To maintain or increase profits, it becomes necessary to exploit workers more to reduce costs and to prevent competition to increase prices.