Comment by testing22321
18 hours ago
> They're ... laying off people, maximizing profits, and giving up. Cowards.
To play devil’s advocate, what they’re doing is not remotely cowardly, it is the entire point of their existence
They have a lever they can pull that will increase profits and the stock price. Why the hell else does a company like Meta even exist? It sure as hell isn’t to provide jobs to meat bags, and anyone that thinks it is needs a very quick lesson about the real world.
They are maximizing profits this quarter at the expense of profits every future quarter.
That's not at all the point of a company's existence. That's what a few companies do, for a short time, if they think they have no place to go but down.
That said, IMO they are right...
> They are maximizing profits this quarter at the expense of profits every future quarter
Oh sure, but the MBAs running stuff don’t care about that. Their bonuses are tied to the now, so the system has optimized for that.
This makes a good point. A lot of people think that big tech has a duty to provide jobs to smart, ambitious people.
They assume that we live in some kind of socialist system. They feel like it's a kind of deal; they accept all the regulations, monopolies bureaucratic bullshit and, in return, the corporate monopolies pay them to keep quiet and stay out of politics.
I understand the sentiment but what's horrible about this mindset is that these people think it's OK to support corrupt political power to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone who doesn't work for a big corporate monopoly. They think that all the smart people work for big tech and everyone else is trash... And they set the criteria for entry into the big tech monopoly club (I.e. screenings and interviews). But the irony is that they're trash! Their pseudo-socialist view of the word is crooked.
The reason I support UBI is because I don't see a meaningful difference between ambitious people and random people. Every generation from boomers onwards are spoiled brats. Mostly monetizing and gatekeeping the ingenuity and labor of past generations by playing dumb social games. The whole system doesn't make sense. As meritocracy declines, the rewards increase and false narratives fill the gaps... They'll have you believe that the person who painted Facebook HQ's walls contributed more to society than the guy who actually invented the paint...