5 ms·

They're cutting headcount because they have no conception of how to make a good product, so reducing costs is the only of making the bottom line go up. That's

by yifanl 2y ago

They're cutting headcount because they have no conception of how to make a good product, so reducing costs is the only of making the bottom line go up. That's across the board, from the startups whose business plan is to be acquired at all costs, to the giant tech companies, whose business plan is to get monopoly power first, then figure out how to extract money later.

goatlover 2y ago
Failures of capitalism that probably need regulation. If the middle class and workers are to be protected.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Would UBI and LVT do the trick? I'm okay with minimum wages on the idea that a democratic government is the biggest possible de facto labor union, but in general I don't want the government making too many rules about how you can hire and fire people
- WalterBright 2y ago
  The city of Seattle decided that gig delivery drivers needed to be protected. They passed a minimum wage for them. The income of gig drivers promptly dropped, as the rise in prices corresponded with a drop in customers. Who regulates the regulators?
  - malfist 2y ago
    You need a citation for that claim. And something more than just "the week after this went into effect it reduced sale volume" And besides, what's the alternative here? Don't protect employees? Let them work below minimum wage?
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      https://mustreadalaska.com/labor-day-cautionary-tale-for-gig-workers-how-seattle-crashed-its-food-delivery-industry/ https://mustreadalaska.com/labor-day-cautionary-tale-for-gig...
      - malfist 2y ago
        Leaving aside the relevance of an Alaskan newspaper talking about local Seattle politics, their only source is a news article from Seattle written the week of the law taking effect. As I said in my original comment, show me something that isn't from the first couple of weeks after it took effect. Preferably something scholarly, not just anecdotes from a newspaper
        WalterBright 2y ago
        If you go to news.google.com, and type in "seattle gig worker law" and you'll find plenty of articles about it.
  - djbusby 2y ago
    Why did the prices for Uber/Lyft rise everywhere else too? It wasn't Seattle laws that did that. It's that those companies needed to go from Growth-Mode to Margin-Mode. They could no longer sell VC dollars for dimes.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      Yes, it was the Seattle laws that did it locally. The food delivery gig drivers were not Uber/Lyft.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >Why did the prices for Uber/Lyft rise everywhere else too? Presumably it rose in Seattle higher/faster than it would otherwise. The source that he provided in a sibling comment says sales dropped "immediately", which seems to corroborate this. It's lazy to argue "well prices rose elsewhere too so the minimum wage law couldn't possibly have had an impact"
      - djbusby 2y ago
        Well, I don't think I'm lazy. IIRC prices were already moving up and the rent-a-car-apps were exiting. And Uber/Lyft were very far on funding, needing some margin. And then there was this other trigger event of worker pay. Which is a nice corporate spin opportunity. And we've seen that pattern 100s of times (blaming workers for price increase).
  - bumby 2y ago
    >Who regulates the regulators? In a healthy democracy, the civic-minded voters do.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      That doesn't work out very well. The voters are too far removed from it, and the instruments the voters have are far too blunt.
      - bumby 2y ago
        That’s why i said “healthy” and “civic-minded.” I think there’s some truth to the saying “You get the government you deserve” It still seems to be better than all the alternatives.
  - makk 2y ago
    > Who regulates the regulators? The voters and their representatives, if they put their minds to it.
- numpad0 2y ago
  Yeah this after all. Private corporations exist to make money. They minimize investment and maximize returns. They progressively suppress wages and inflate profits. Clever individual choices and self discounts merely create temporary competitive advantages against other poor laborers in the market. If you manage to secure the bag that way and exit that class altogether, good for you, but that solves nothing for the rest. There's no be all end all threshold that everyone can just stay above and stay ahead of inflation.
- gruez 2y ago
  What would this mean in practice? Forcing companies to justify layoffs? Mandating minimum amount of people in frontend/backend/devops/operations/security roles?
WalterBright 2y ago
> They're cutting headcount because they have no conception of how to make a good product, so reducing costs is the only of making the bottom line go up. The field is wide open for a startup to do it right. Why not start one?
- malfist 2y ago
  Because the field isn't even. Monopoly or oligopoly power works to prevent new competitors while at the same time stagnating their offerings. Look at the explosion of browsers and their capabilities after the IE monopoly was broken.
- Buttons840 2y ago
  Well, either (1) our free market is not healthy and the ability to form new companies that do better is weak and feeble, or (2) the current companies are doing about as well as possibe and it is hard to out compete them. If it's the latter (number 2), then we need to start asking why American companies "doing about as well as possible" are incapable of producing secure and reliable software. Being able to produce secure and reliable software, in general and en masse, seems like a useful ability for a nation. Reminds me of our national ability to produce aircraft; how's the competition in that market working out? And are we getting better or worse at producing aircraft?
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Companies deliver what customers are willing to pay for. If customers are willing to pay for X, and no companies make X available, you have a great case to make to a venture capitalist. BTW, in every company I've worked for, the employees thought management was stupid and incompetent. In every company I've run, the employees thought I was stupid and incompetent. Sometimes these people leave and start their own company, and soon discover their employees think they're stupid and incompetent. It's just a fact of life in any organization. It's also a fact of life that anyone starting a business learns an awful lot the hard way. Consider Senator George McGovern (D), who said it best: George McGovern's Mea Culpa "In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business, especially during a recession of the kind that hit New England just as I was acquiring the inn's 43-year leasehold. I also wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender. Today we are much closer to a general acknowledgment that government must encourage business to expand and grow. Bill Clinton, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey and others have, I believe, changed the debate of our party. We intuitively know that to create job opportunities we need entrepreneurs who will risk their capital against an expected payoff. Too often, however, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities." https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203406404578070543545022704 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203406404578070...
solidninja 2y ago
Probably a lot of that is to do with the short-term profit mindset. There is tons of software that is far from optimal, breaks frequently and has a massive impact on human lives (think: medical record systems, mainframes at banks, etc.). None of it is sexy, none of it is something you can knock up a PoC for in a month, and none of it is getting the funding to fix it (instead funding is going to teams of outsourced consultants who overpromise and just increase their budgets year on year). Gen AI won't make this better I think.

by yifanl 2y ago

goatlover 2y ago

Failures of capitalism that probably need regulation. If the middle class and workers are to be protected.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Would UBI and LVT do the trick? I'm okay with minimum wages on the idea that a democratic government is the biggest possible de facto labor union, but in general I don't want the government making too many rules about how you can hire and fire people
WalterBright 2y ago
The city of Seattle decided that gig delivery drivers needed to be protected. They passed a minimum wage for them. The income of gig drivers promptly dropped, as the rise in prices corresponded with a drop in customers. Who regulates the regulators?
- malfist 2y ago
  You need a citation for that claim. And something more than just "the week after this went into effect it reduced sale volume" And besides, what's the alternative here? Don't protect employees? Let them work below minimum wage?
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    https://mustreadalaska.com/labor-day-cautionary-tale-for-gig-workers-how-seattle-crashed-its-food-delivery-industry/ https://mustreadalaska.com/labor-day-cautionary-tale-for-gig...
    - malfist 2y ago
      Leaving aside the relevance of an Alaskan newspaper talking about local Seattle politics, their only source is a news article from Seattle written the week of the law taking effect. As I said in my original comment, show me something that isn't from the first couple of weeks after it took effect. Preferably something scholarly, not just anecdotes from a newspaper
      - WalterBright 2y ago
        If you go to news.google.com, and type in "seattle gig worker law" and you'll find plenty of articles about it.
- djbusby 2y ago
  Why did the prices for Uber/Lyft rise everywhere else too? It wasn't Seattle laws that did that. It's that those companies needed to go from Growth-Mode to Margin-Mode. They could no longer sell VC dollars for dimes.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Yes, it was the Seattle laws that did it locally. The food delivery gig drivers were not Uber/Lyft.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >Why did the prices for Uber/Lyft rise everywhere else too? Presumably it rose in Seattle higher/faster than it would otherwise. The source that he provided in a sibling comment says sales dropped "immediately", which seems to corroborate this. It's lazy to argue "well prices rose elsewhere too so the minimum wage law couldn't possibly have had an impact"
    - djbusby 2y ago
      Well, I don't think I'm lazy. IIRC prices were already moving up and the rent-a-car-apps were exiting. And Uber/Lyft were very far on funding, needing some margin. And then there was this other trigger event of worker pay. Which is a nice corporate spin opportunity. And we've seen that pattern 100s of times (blaming workers for price increase).
- bumby 2y ago
  >Who regulates the regulators? In a healthy democracy, the civic-minded voters do.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    That doesn't work out very well. The voters are too far removed from it, and the instruments the voters have are far too blunt.
    - bumby 2y ago
      That’s why i said “healthy” and “civic-minded.” I think there’s some truth to the saying “You get the government you deserve” It still seems to be better than all the alternatives.
- makk 2y ago
  > Who regulates the regulators? The voters and their representatives, if they put their minds to it.
numpad0 2y ago
Yeah this after all. Private corporations exist to make money. They minimize investment and maximize returns. They progressively suppress wages and inflate profits. Clever individual choices and self discounts merely create temporary competitive advantages against other poor laborers in the market. If you manage to secure the bag that way and exit that class altogether, good for you, but that solves nothing for the rest. There's no be all end all threshold that everyone can just stay above and stay ahead of inflation.
gruez 2y ago
What would this mean in practice? Forcing companies to justify layoffs? Mandating minimum amount of people in frontend/backend/devops/operations/security roles?

WalterBright 2y ago

> They're cutting headcount because they have no conception of how to make a good product, so reducing costs is the only of making the bottom line go up. The field is wide open for a startup to do it right. Why not start one?

malfist 2y ago
Because the field isn't even. Monopoly or oligopoly power works to prevent new competitors while at the same time stagnating their offerings. Look at the explosion of browsers and their capabilities after the IE monopoly was broken.
Buttons840 2y ago
Well, either (1) our free market is not healthy and the ability to form new companies that do better is weak and feeble, or (2) the current companies are doing about as well as possibe and it is hard to out compete them. If it's the latter (number 2), then we need to start asking why American companies "doing about as well as possible" are incapable of producing secure and reliable software. Being able to produce secure and reliable software, in general and en masse, seems like a useful ability for a nation. Reminds me of our national ability to produce aircraft; how's the competition in that market working out? And are we getting better or worse at producing aircraft?
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Companies deliver what customers are willing to pay for. If customers are willing to pay for X, and no companies make X available, you have a great case to make to a venture capitalist. BTW, in every company I've worked for, the employees thought management was stupid and incompetent. In every company I've run, the employees thought I was stupid and incompetent. Sometimes these people leave and start their own company, and soon discover their employees think they're stupid and incompetent. It's just a fact of life in any organization. It's also a fact of life that anyone starting a business learns an awful lot the hard way. Consider Senator George McGovern (D), who said it best: George McGovern's Mea Culpa "In retrospect, I wish I had known more about the hazards and difficulties of such a business, especially during a recession of the kind that hit New England just as I was acquiring the inn's 43-year leasehold. I also wish that during the years I was in public office, I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender. Today we are much closer to a general acknowledgment that government must encourage business to expand and grow. Bill Clinton, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey and others have, I believe, changed the debate of our party. We intuitively know that to create job opportunities we need entrepreneurs who will risk their capital against an expected payoff. Too often, however, public policy does not consider whether we are choking off those opportunities." https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203406404578070543545022704 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203406404578070...

solidninja 2y ago

Probably a lot of that is to do with the short-term profit mindset. There is tons of software that is far from optimal, breaks frequently and has a massive impact on human lives (think: medical record systems, mainframes at banks, etc.). None of it is sexy, none of it is something you can knock up a PoC for in a month, and none of it is getting the funding to fix it (instead funding is going to teams of outsourced consultants who overpromise and just increase their budgets year on year). Gen AI won't make this better I think.