Comment by cerevant@lemm.ee on Tech's broken promises: Streaming is now just as expensive and confusing as cable. Ubers cost as much as taxis. And the cloud is no longer cheap

Tech’s broken promises: Streaming is now just as expensive and confusing as cable. Ubers cost as much as taxis. And the cloud is no longer cheap::Some tech is getting pricier and looking a lot like the older services it was supposed to beat. From video streaming to ride-hailing and cloud computing.

Yep. The business model has always been “Lure them in and stifle competition with a low initial cost. Then when we have the market we can jack up the price.” Enshitification at its best.

This is just capitalism at work. Capitalism = enshitification, exploitation, and destruction.

Capitalism without any regulation*

If its actually well regulated it wont be capitalism. Just like Europe has many kingdoms yet isnt full of actual monarchy.

All capitalism is, at its core, is the system of owning and investing capital for greater returns later. You can have that while regulating things–at least in theory.

An actual dictionary definition of capitalism:

an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

Any definition of capitalism that doesn’t in some way mention private ownership of capital is simply wrong.

So your issue is that I didn’t use the word “private” in my write-up?

Yeah but then the wealthy eventually start buying away regulation. The only thing that made capitalism get under any sort of control was fear of a worker’s revolution

The only thing that made capitalism get under any sort of control was fear of a worker’s revolution

Yep, and so they made capitalism global, exported all of the union jobs to countries where labor abuse is permitted or encouraged, and then created new categories of unorganized, exploitative jobs faster than labor could keep up with them.

Even well-regulated capitalism strives for this and somehow manages to achieve it. It is the nature of capitalism.

It is in the nature of power. Reducing this to a particular economic system is nearsighted.

Every social system with a power dynamic (i.e. a system with two or more people in it) is vulnerable to power abuse. Power blinds, blindness strips powerful of perspective, decisions made without good information drunk-walk towards ruin.

The only common thing is the fact that it’s the average Jane who suffers first and whose rage ends up counteracting the ruin.

It is in the nature of power. Reducing this to a particular economic system is nearsighted.

I will agree that it is the nature of power. But I will argue that few other economic systems actively facilitate (and actually reward) the concentration of power the way capitalism does. I’ll also point out you are basically resorting to a “whataboutism” argument.

I’ll also point out you are basically resorting to a “whataboutism” argument.

That explains… a lot. I apologize for wasting your time.

Literally working as intended. Not sure why it takes people so long to figure this out.

It’s just impossible to have a conversation about anything here, isn’t it?

A healthy dose of western/capitalist propaganda since birth and until death helps a lot. So many people under the illusion that this is the natural progression of civilization, or the best.

So much propaganda some people think that if a government offers public services they are about to be sent to a gulag.

When you’ve been exposed to nothing but capitalsm your whole life it’s incredibly hard to be convinced that anything else could even work. Just like people born into religious cults, it’s hard to break when it’s all you’ve known.

Growing up in the '70s and '80s in the US, I know that the “greatest country on earth” propaganda worked on me. It took me until my 30s before I kind of looked around and said,“What the fuck is going on here?”

Also known as the Wal-Mart business model.

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Tech's broken promises: Streaming is now just as expensive and confusing as cable. Ubers cost as much as taxis. And the cloud is no longer cheap(www.businessinsider.com)

Technology

!technology@lemmy.world

Our Rules

Approved Bots

Community stats

Community moderators