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*good public businesses Private businesses don’t have to do anything and is where you get some of the best companies that exist and care about their customers

*good public businesses Private businesses don’t have to do anything and is where you get some of the best companies that exist and care about their customers like Patagonia. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/gear-news/patagonia-axios-harris-poll-2023/ https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/gear-news/patagon... Maybe it’s the only way out of the enshittification death spiral because there are no shareholders to destroy the company to “create value” for.

dyno12345 3y ago
There is still a fiduciary duty even for private companies
- bombcar 3y ago
  Private companies often have so few shareholders that you can simply talk to all of them, together.
- over_bridge 3y ago
  That fiduciary duty needs to die/ be reimagined. It's turned corporations into one dimensional money makers. Profit at any cost. You should make money in order to achieve your goals, not just to set the high score for making money. It's way too easy for hostile shareholders to force companies to do things that the workers, even CEO level workers, don't want to do.
zare_st 3y ago
Yeah but it takes quite a success story in IT to have a breakthrough product and not yield under all the millions thrown at you, especially when you know that 'competitors' might try to break your legs all the way if you decide to stay in the race. It gets tough as the numbers start to get unreal fast. Patagonia and any physical product oriented business has a curve to ride, they grow in percentage not N fold. Someone registers a company and develops new technology, if he has the edge the company worth will skyrocket over night.
bobthepanda 3y ago
Patagonia is a unique corporate structure because it is a nonprofit that shovels all non-invested money into a 501c4. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/climate/patagonia-holdfast-philanthropy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/climate/patagonia-holdfas...
duxup 3y ago
Not that I disagree, but in my experience the enshittification, or at least a lot of prominent examples are often services that never made money and now have to and ... yeah they can't so it goes bad. The whole cycle of "free brings in users (and we users LOVE that) --> users bring in investors --> later you have to make money --> change the service to make money and now nobody is happy" is a whole other issue.
- hnbad 3y ago
  There seem to be two things at play: 1. The current economic situation is causing a lot of investors to tighten screws and demand profitability where they had previously been fine with just seeking growth because it becomes clearer that fewer investors are willing to participate in the next round of hot potato in the hopes of catching a unicorn. 2. Investors generally seek growth and at some point you've hit the physical limits by having caught nearly every customer you can and the only way to drive up those numbers is by upselling to the same people which often means kneecapping user experience to help upselling on the cure (e.g. Amazon Prime Video "channels" as extra subscriptions on top of the Prime Video ad-free subscription on top of the buy/rent for individual movies and shows on top of the Amazon Prime subscription that also includes access to Prime Video itself). With streaming services specifically there's also the effect where Netflix itself ended up figuring out its niche's business model only to have every IP owning distribution studio try to copy it and become its competition, removing their IP from it (and any additional IP they can get exclusive licenses for) and locking it behind their own subscription model to cut out the middleman even if for the customer this means having to sign up to at least five different platforms if you want to watch every episode of the Pokemon animated series (for some reason). This is obviously enshittification for the customer and would still be so even if the individual streaming services all used the same exact pricing and business model as Netflix did a few years ago (before the price hikes, ads and measures against account sharing) - although it could be described as a monopoly being replaced by a market (which we're normally told should be a good thing).
asoneth 3y ago
My current employer and my last were both 25+ year-old quietly successful private tech companies. In both cases there was a strong commitment to product quality in order to maintain our reputation and long-term customer relationships whereas the public companies I worked at were focused on chasing the next quarter to satisfy "the shareholders". Every once in a while I'm tempted to work for a public company again since I might be able to earn slightly more, but after working for adults for so long it'd be hard to go back to a place where my responsibilities to users and shareholders are misaligned.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Out of all the major tech companies - Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Tesla, Nvidia, etc. can you honestly say any of them are short term focused. Well it would be a stretch to say that Google has any focus.
  - sirwhinesalot 3y ago
    Yes, all of them, though not to the same extent. Microsoft and Amazon are probably the worst. Consider all the layoffs recently. Microsoft is hellbent on destroying windows if it means growth in the ads market. Amazon has let its store become a total cesspit, and look at the bullshit they pulled with prime. Youtube has 30 ads in a 3 minute video these days.
  - asoneth 3y ago
    Yes. Many of those companies have made choices that trade reputation and/or relationships built up over years to increase a quarterly profit margin. Whether that is sacrificing product quality, sunsetting well-loved products/services only to spin up similar efforts in the future, treating long-term employees poorly, burning through developer goodwill through high fees or API churn, etc. When I think about the value of long timeframes I don't just mean having a good R&D dept or throwing money at moonshots, I mean building up and maintaining goodwill with employees, customers, users, partners, developers, and regulators. Of course many private companies are run by profit-maximizing jerks and some public companies have patient shareholders who trust the company's management. But in general I have had better experiences working for an engaged owner who I can meet face-to-face over working for a crowd of shareholders and venture capitalists for whom the company is just another financial instrument in their portfolio.
lolinder 3y ago
> good public businesses > Private businesses don’t have to do anything Is this a baked-in legal distinction between public and private businesses, or is it that the company is supposed to do what the shareholders want and the shareholders of a private business are more likely than those of a public business to want something beyond ROI?
- graemep 3y ago
  I think very often with private companies it is not just looking beyond ROI (they may do) but they also look longer term. A shareholder whose children will inherit the business one day will have a very different outlook to one who is looking at their annual performance numbers, which is the sort thing institutional shareholders are looking at.
  - collaborative 3y ago
    Sadly, nowadays the shareholder will sell the shares and buy properties to pass on to children. Land owner is fast becoming the only profession with inter generational prospects. That's why a property crash is the only hope for a return to a normal economy (where people run businesses, develop skills, do actual work)
    - gottorf 3y ago
      > That's why a property crash is the only hope for a return to a normal economy (where people run businesses, develop skills, do actual work) Well, let's not actively hope for a crash. Lots of normal people who run businesses, develop skills, and do actual work suffered greatly during the last property bubble of the GFC[0]. For what it's worth, outside of the major metropolises where a combination of supply restrictions (principally via zoning) and overwhelming demand (stoked by natural and economic advantages as well as policy that induces home purchases), people running businesses, developing skills, and doing actual work are able to afford to buy land and homes. My barber, for example, with no college degree and no inheritance, lives on 10 acres. The catch? It's in an area not fancied by urbane types, and his house on that land is a mobile home, though he is saving up to build a "real" one[1]. [0]: And with this, it's interesting to study the effect that government policy had on pushing loans to people who had no hope of repaying them. [1]: In many areas, building codes and zoning place a floor on the minimum price of a house, and it can be argued that this floor is too high.
spaceribs 3y ago
Worker-ownership via cooperatives is the best medicine for enshittification and oligarcy.

dyno12345 3y ago

There is still a fiduciary duty even for private companies

bombcar 3y ago
Private companies often have so few shareholders that you can simply talk to all of them, together.
over_bridge 3y ago
That fiduciary duty needs to die/ be reimagined. It's turned corporations into one dimensional money makers. Profit at any cost. You should make money in order to achieve your goals, not just to set the high score for making money. It's way too easy for hostile shareholders to force companies to do things that the workers, even CEO level workers, don't want to do.

zare_st 3y ago

Yeah but it takes quite a success story in IT to have a breakthrough product and not yield under all the millions thrown at you, especially when you know that 'competitors' might try to break your legs all the way if you decide to stay in the race. It gets tough as the numbers start to get unreal fast. Patagonia and any physical product oriented business has a curve to ride, they grow in percentage not N fold. Someone registers a company and develops new technology, if he has the edge the company worth will skyrocket over night.

bobthepanda 3y ago

Patagonia is a unique corporate structure because it is a nonprofit that shovels all non-invested money into a 501c4. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/climate/patagonia-holdfast-philanthropy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/30/climate/patagonia-holdfas...

duxup 3y ago

Not that I disagree, but in my experience the enshittification, or at least a lot of prominent examples are often services that never made money and now have to and ... yeah they can't so it goes bad. The whole cycle of "free brings in users (and we users LOVE that) --> users bring in investors --> later you have to make money --> change the service to make money and now nobody is happy" is a whole other issue.

hnbad 3y ago
There seem to be two things at play: 1. The current economic situation is causing a lot of investors to tighten screws and demand profitability where they had previously been fine with just seeking growth because it becomes clearer that fewer investors are willing to participate in the next round of hot potato in the hopes of catching a unicorn. 2. Investors generally seek growth and at some point you've hit the physical limits by having caught nearly every customer you can and the only way to drive up those numbers is by upselling to the same people which often means kneecapping user experience to help upselling on the cure (e.g. Amazon Prime Video "channels" as extra subscriptions on top of the Prime Video ad-free subscription on top of the buy/rent for individual movies and shows on top of the Amazon Prime subscription that also includes access to Prime Video itself). With streaming services specifically there's also the effect where Netflix itself ended up figuring out its niche's business model only to have every IP owning distribution studio try to copy it and become its competition, removing their IP from it (and any additional IP they can get exclusive licenses for) and locking it behind their own subscription model to cut out the middleman even if for the customer this means having to sign up to at least five different platforms if you want to watch every episode of the Pokemon animated series (for some reason). This is obviously enshittification for the customer and would still be so even if the individual streaming services all used the same exact pricing and business model as Netflix did a few years ago (before the price hikes, ads and measures against account sharing) - although it could be described as a monopoly being replaced by a market (which we're normally told should be a good thing).

asoneth 3y ago

My current employer and my last were both 25+ year-old quietly successful private tech companies. In both cases there was a strong commitment to product quality in order to maintain our reputation and long-term customer relationships whereas the public companies I worked at were focused on chasing the next quarter to satisfy "the shareholders". Every once in a while I'm tempted to work for a public company again since I might be able to earn slightly more, but after working for adults for so long it'd be hard to go back to a place where my responsibilities to users and shareholders are misaligned.

scarface_74 3y ago
Out of all the major tech companies - Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Tesla, Nvidia, etc. can you honestly say any of them are short term focused. Well it would be a stretch to say that Google has any focus.
- sirwhinesalot 3y ago
  Yes, all of them, though not to the same extent. Microsoft and Amazon are probably the worst. Consider all the layoffs recently. Microsoft is hellbent on destroying windows if it means growth in the ads market. Amazon has let its store become a total cesspit, and look at the bullshit they pulled with prime. Youtube has 30 ads in a 3 minute video these days.
- asoneth 3y ago
  Yes. Many of those companies have made choices that trade reputation and/or relationships built up over years to increase a quarterly profit margin. Whether that is sacrificing product quality, sunsetting well-loved products/services only to spin up similar efforts in the future, treating long-term employees poorly, burning through developer goodwill through high fees or API churn, etc. When I think about the value of long timeframes I don't just mean having a good R&D dept or throwing money at moonshots, I mean building up and maintaining goodwill with employees, customers, users, partners, developers, and regulators. Of course many private companies are run by profit-maximizing jerks and some public companies have patient shareholders who trust the company's management. But in general I have had better experiences working for an engaged owner who I can meet face-to-face over working for a crowd of shareholders and venture capitalists for whom the company is just another financial instrument in their portfolio.

lolinder 3y ago

> good public businesses > Private businesses don’t have to do anything Is this a baked-in legal distinction between public and private businesses, or is it that the company is supposed to do what the shareholders want and the shareholders of a private business are more likely than those of a public business to want something beyond ROI?

graemep 3y ago
I think very often with private companies it is not just looking beyond ROI (they may do) but they also look longer term. A shareholder whose children will inherit the business one day will have a very different outlook to one who is looking at their annual performance numbers, which is the sort thing institutional shareholders are looking at.
- collaborative 3y ago
  Sadly, nowadays the shareholder will sell the shares and buy properties to pass on to children. Land owner is fast becoming the only profession with inter generational prospects. That's why a property crash is the only hope for a return to a normal economy (where people run businesses, develop skills, do actual work)
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > That's why a property crash is the only hope for a return to a normal economy (where people run businesses, develop skills, do actual work) Well, let's not actively hope for a crash. Lots of normal people who run businesses, develop skills, and do actual work suffered greatly during the last property bubble of the GFC[0]. For what it's worth, outside of the major metropolises where a combination of supply restrictions (principally via zoning) and overwhelming demand (stoked by natural and economic advantages as well as policy that induces home purchases), people running businesses, developing skills, and doing actual work are able to afford to buy land and homes. My barber, for example, with no college degree and no inheritance, lives on 10 acres. The catch? It's in an area not fancied by urbane types, and his house on that land is a mobile home, though he is saving up to build a "real" one[1]. [0]: And with this, it's interesting to study the effect that government policy had on pushing loans to people who had no hope of repaying them. [1]: In many areas, building codes and zoning place a floor on the minimum price of a house, and it can be argued that this floor is too high.

spaceribs 3y ago

Worker-ownership via cooperatives is the best medicine for enshittification and oligarcy.