this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 88 points 10 months ago (4 children)

"As you all know, we have worked hard over the last year to run our business as sustainably as possible. Unfortunately, we still have work to do to rightsize our company and I regret having to share that we are taking the painful step to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch," Clancy wrote.

Cripes I hate corporate newspeak. "Rightsize" isn't a word, and I hope I never encounter it again.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago (3 children)

"As 'sustainably' as possible." I love that one, because it makes it sound like they're being kind to nature.

Nope, just profit.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Even in financial terms "sustainably" always pisses me off. None of these companies are trying to sustain, they demand constant growth to be happy. Never ending growth is never sustainable.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Never-ending growth may not be sustainable, but it is growable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Clearly they mean that they want the growth to be "sustainable", not the company..

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

I know corporate America doesn't really deserve any meaningful amount of good faith, but for whatever truth is worth, "sustainable" in a business context has essentially always meant financials. A platform like Twitch is generally going to have really high operational costs between infrastructure, network traffic, engineers, and revenue sharing with streamers, and given that Amazon doesn't operate Twitch for charity any more than you do your job for free, they need to make sure that they actually have sufficient revenue to be able to make the finances sustainable. I won't pretend to know how profitable it is, if it even is yet, but cutting employees is obviously a pretty easy lever to pull to reduce costs if your operations can get away with it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Is twitch or prime video even profitable? I’m pretty sure twitch isn’t but prime might be just due to locking people in to making their e-commerce purchases on amazon

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

prime might be

It all depends on Amazon's accounting, and whether or not they want it to be profitable.

They can pretend that people are subscribing to prime just for the videos, and then it becomes profitable. Or, they can pretend that people are subscribing to prime for the shipping, and prime video is just a loss-leader they use to encourage people to subscribe.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

..so we can make a profit off your work.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

You're fortunate that this is the first time you're hearing it, but it's been a business term for quite some time now. I've only ever heard it used as a euphemism for downsizing but one HR lady insisted the term was general, that if you were understaffed you'd still need to right size.

I asked her if in meetings that might lead to some confusion, and she was confident that it never would. She was also an idiot.

When I started getting mentioned in meetings for doing a really good job on tasks that she was supposed to be doing she fired me. She was fired just a few weeks later. Sorry, she was right sized.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 10 months ago (3 children)

This legal responsibility to shareholder profits sure is shitting on everything else. We should change that.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago

people really shouldn't get to gamble on companies and people's livelihoods

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

That's just an excuse companies make when they never had the intention of doing the right thing.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Right after the introduction of additional advertising pricing structure. Wow

[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago

That is for shareholders not employees silly.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Fun reminder: Jeff Bezos makes $9.6 billion a year :)

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

he doesn't even make TEN billions a year? Ha, what a loser!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As in, on average his wealth increases by that much? Or that he makes that much in income?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They're the same thing, and Elon buying Twitter in cash should have taught you that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago

They're not the same thing. Musk paid for twitter partially with borrowed money, partially with money raised by selling Tesla stock. The money he got when he sold that Tesla stock was income. The borrowed money wasn't.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Wait, Amazon owns Twitch?

Damn, do the same 5 companies just own everything now?

[–] [email protected] 47 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Have you been living under a rock or in a comma during the past two decades? Like 5 dudes own 90% of the world.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

That explains the smell.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

It's been that way for awhile.

If you have Amazon prime, you can sub to one creator a month "for free."

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

Bezosibub is desperate for the recession he was promised.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Justin sold at the right time