okay Google, how about this. I already pay for premium, but Im too lazy to disable my adblocker for just your site, can we just call it a draw and move on?

  • rem26_art@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    right? It seems like this summer is just the time everyone decided “naa, we’ll be the worst”

    • tal@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think – and I don’t claim familiarity with the details of each company’s situation – that this may have something of a common cause.

      As long as investment dollars are readily available and growth possible, it makes sense to stay in “growth” phase, burn investment dollars, lose money, grow userbase.

      Once they are not, then it becomes more important to switch to monetizing the userbase that has been built up.

      My understanding is that the post-COVID-19 environment – with higher interest rates, tighter capital – is less-amenable to obtaining investments for growth. And all tech companies will be affected by that, will tend to shift away from “burn easily-available now capital to try to increase revenue later” more into generating revenue.

      • ryegye24@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Cory Doctorow described this phenomenon best with his “enshittification” stuff. First platforms give all their surplus value to their uses to drive adoption, then they shift it to their customers once the users are locked in, then they shift it to themselves once their customers are also locked in, so at the end you have a platform that’s not serving the users or the customers, only the shareholders.

        • panoptic@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, the big spike in interest rates is causing all the big tech players to make the pivot to enshittified profitability fast enough that it’s way more visible than usual.