In Late Stage Capitalism, companies have realized they can maximize their profits by making their product worse. Especially when they have a (near) monopoly.
Unless you are strictly talking next quarter’s immediate profits/stock price, this is just bad for Microsoft. They are sabotaging their already anticompetitive golden goose.
Late Stage Capitalism dictates they’d try to keep their lock-in, but this is more executive dysfunction.
I feel like Frankenstein didn’t know when to quit either. There’s a lot of companies twisting the knife into themselves because shareholders demand infinite growth, but creating systems that work in harmony are in exact opposition to that creedo, so until we eliminate the perverse cancerous idea of infinite growth, we won’t rid ourselves of these obviously bad actors that have themselves gilded with the guise of progress
Even infinite growth has been thrown out. The main objective seems to be ‘growth next few quarters’ like its a desperate act of survival; beyond that is the problem of whoever’s holding the bag then.
There are some companies still thinking long term, but money has definitely shifted to ‘bonkers short term’
That’s the problem, though. There’s always the next few quarters. They still ultimately demand and attempt infinite growth, they just never put any thought into how to do it sustainably, and the short-term fix is to start locking away existing features behind subscriptions, raising prices, putting ads in everywhere, cutting testing budgets, etc. Somehow the mentality turned into chasing infinite short-term gains
In Late Stage Capitalism, companies have realized they can maximize their profits by making their product worse. Especially when they have a (near) monopoly.
Unless you are strictly talking next quarter’s immediate profits/stock price, this is just bad for Microsoft. They are sabotaging their already anticompetitive golden goose.
Late Stage Capitalism dictates they’d try to keep their lock-in, but this is more executive dysfunction.
I feel like Frankenstein didn’t know when to quit either. There’s a lot of companies twisting the knife into themselves because shareholders demand infinite growth, but creating systems that work in harmony are in exact opposition to that creedo, so until we eliminate the perverse cancerous idea of infinite growth, we won’t rid ourselves of these obviously bad actors that have themselves gilded with the guise of progress
Even infinite growth has been thrown out. The main objective seems to be ‘growth next few quarters’ like its a desperate act of survival; beyond that is the problem of whoever’s holding the bag then.
There are some companies still thinking long term, but money has definitely shifted to ‘bonkers short term’
That’s the problem, though. There’s always the next few quarters. They still ultimately demand and attempt infinite growth, they just never put any thought into how to do it sustainably, and the short-term fix is to start locking away existing features behind subscriptions, raising prices, putting ads in everywhere, cutting testing budgets, etc. Somehow the mentality turned into chasing infinite short-term gains
I mean…yeah. I said maximize profits, not long term sustainability. Executive bonuses are based on this quarter’s stock price.
The dysfunction comes from incentives to act badly. What makes it “Late Stage” is the complete lack of thought for the future.