this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
86 points (100.0% liked)

Reddit Migration

37 readers
2 users here now

### About Community Tracking and helping #redditmigration to Kbin and the Fediverse. Say hello to the decentralized and open future. To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/

founded 1 year ago
 

Original take found on another forum.

"I think we're seeing the beginning of the tech bubble bursting again.

You've got the successful companies that provide a case study in tech industry profitability(Google, Amazon, Apple, etc.) which is why you've got all these venture capital firms plowing so much money into startups, left and right, because they expect that one of them will be the next Google or Amazon. Now that low interest rates have gone bye-bye, the VC firms are demanding that these startups start showing a profit. However, almost all of these startups have one of the following problems:

1.) They were never profitable and can never be profitable because the fundamental concept of what they do is thoroughly flawed
2.) The service or good they provide could be profitable, but due to being formed during a time of easy money, their current business model is incapable of being profitable, and they are too over leveraged to be able to restructure themselves into a more profitable setup
3.) They are perfectly sustainable/profitable, but their financiers expect far more return on investment than they are capable of providing

The result is the trend of "enshittification" as VC investors force unwanted changes onto these startups in the hopes of increasing revenue. This is stuff like locking previously free features behind a paywall, clogging everything with ads, cutting costs somewhere (payrolls, server space, etc) that negatively affects the user experience, raising prices, or needlessly bolting on something that nobody asked for because it's one of the only things that VC firms might still blindly throwing money at(AI).

Even the actually profitable companies are doing this shit because they are just addicted to the ridiculous growth they've enjoyed in the past."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Jon-H558@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So this is why I am invested in this. Not really about the aps. I see this as stand against enshitifcation and showing that the precious ipo is not a given if you treat your users as cattle.

[–] kitonthenet@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the stand against enshittification would be changing corporate governance to reduce the role capital plays in decision making, this is just fun. It's also, at least for a time, a return to a more interesting internet

[–] variouslegumes@reddthat.com 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isn't choosing a platform not driven by capital basically fighting enshitification?

[–] fuser@quex.cc 2 points 1 year ago

it is whatever you want it to be.