this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Trying to hype up investors, yes! It's exactly why we keep seeing features that nobody wants in goods and services nowadays.

Capitalism is supposed to maximize efficiency and do everything it can to make the consumers happy. But we have reached a point where the "meta" isn't that anymore. It really never was, really. But with corporations becoming so big they dominate world markets, it has become complety shameless about it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Eh, making customers happy is absolutely still a thing, but it only really applies to smaller companies. Small companies win through superior service, large companies win by being the default option. Once a company is the default option, it comes down to how much profit the company can extract.

The problem isn't capitalism, but all of the rules both explicit and implicit that benefit large companies over smaller companies. Very rarely does a small company lose due to not having economies of scale (does happen though), usually it's because of startup costs, and those go up substantially when there's a large player because of all the barriers in place. For example, ISPs will sue to prevent newcomers from getting established. If you don't have deep pockets, there are many industries you just can't get started in.

It used to be that large companies could fail if they royally mess up, but now get just get bailed out. Or they buy their competition so they don't need to innovate. Or they sue their competitors so they can't compete. The problem isn't capitalism itself, the problem is all the nonsense that protects those with more and allows them to bully those with less. The problem is ineffective government.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The problem isn't capitalism, but all of the rules both explicit and implicit that benefit large companies over smaller companies.

The fact that the rules benefit those with more capital is a feature, not a bug, of capitalism

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

To an extent, but at a certain point having a lot of capital doesn't help as much. Capital buys you economies of scale, it doesn't buy you innovation, and companies tend to get less efficient as they get larger.

The proper counter to large companies abusing their power, then, is something like Universal Basic Income (or my preferred formation, Negative Income Tax), since one of the biggest obstacles to starting a business is being able to eat while the business is growing. That's a fantastic thing for the government to provide since it doesn't interfere much with the market. If we had that, I don't think nearly as many innovators would join up with big tech companies and instead would start their own ventures.

Another big one is cutting corporate protections with size. The larger you are, the less protection you should need, meaning if you break the law, the law can come after personal assets instead of just corporate assets. We should still provide protections for smaller companies though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The problems you see in government are the problems caused by capitalism through regulatory capture.

Not to mention that there are plenty of inherent problems with capitalism since it just doesn't work for products bought e.g. only once or twice in your life or where the quality can otherwise not be judged by the buyer before buying.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

They are making the customers happy, the problem is people misunderstand their position in the supply chain.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The question with this is, after a year or so of this nonsense, are they succeeding in selling AI?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Open AI‘s newest model is priced at 200 $ / month since they have been bleeding money and desperately need to earn some cash. This is probably the first sign of the bubble collapsing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

I use various models on a daily basis (as a software/infrastructure developer), and can say that the reason they are able to sell AI is that it's really useful.

Like any tool, you have to work with its strengths and weaknesses, and it's very much a matter of "shit in, shit out."

For example, it can easily get confused with complicated requests, so they must be narrowly focused. Breaking large problems down into smaller ones is a normal part of problem solving, so this doesn't detract from its utility.

Also, it sometimes just makes shit up, so it's absolutely necessary to thoroughly test everything it outputs. Test-driven development has been around for a long time, so that's not really a problem either.

It's more of a booksmart intern assistant than a professional software engineer, but used in this way it's a great productivity booster.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

nice youtube channel / creator. thanks!