Comment by kjkjadksj

2 years ago

Part of the issue is that it isn’t just the web, but the inevitable american corporate shareholder model. Even businesses could be mom and pop ified and made way more popular overnight: quit raising prices and cutting corners and it would actually stand for itself like a massive $7 burrito. However the expectation is that shareholders get returns. Costs must be cut. Prices must be raised. Margins must be improved. It doesn’t matter if this eats the business alive, as shareholders are sufficiently leveraged. The whole system is incentivized to select for inferior quality and taking all the available money on the table.

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kjkjadksj

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ToucanLoucan  2 years ago

My rant above and your response reminded me of all those tons of MMO games out there that are ancient, with a tiny playerbase, that remain profitable nonetheless simply because if you have a product that people like using, putting it into maintenance mode and doing the bare minimum to keep it running is a perfectly valid business strategy. The companies that buy these service games and run them effectively just buy completed money printers and keep them operating. It's not going to make anyone rich probably, but it's a perfectly valid and profitable way to go about things.

The silicon valley "grow at all costs, always evolve and innovate forever" model is so detached from the reality of most businesses in my experience.

  • Suppafly  2 years ago

    >The companies that buy these service games and run them effectively just buy completed money printers and keep them operating.

    I hadn't really thought about that topic in that way before. Really explains why some of those older MMOs have no desire to really make any improvements, the owners are happy to just keep them powered up and collect a check but have no incentive to invest in making them better.

    • ToucanLoucan  2 years ago

      I think the notion that sometimes things are just "done" is incredibly undervalued in our industry. Frankly I wish a ton of games I play would STOP updating.

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  • isoprophlex  2 years ago

    In biology, you'd call that a cancer. But to people praising the gospel of VC money, it's something desirable...