The declining quality of our supply of extremely rich people - a rant

[Ares Land]

I wonder if feudal lords used enshittification

Oh, certainly, the Middle Ages were very long, and the system was complex enough for about anything you imagine to happen and feudal lords could and would be abusive.

As a mitigating factor, commoners had their own prerogatives and rights (limited but very real and very detailed) and were very defensive about these. This could be enforced by rival lords / the king / other overlords, and at times by peasant revolt (which could get very bloody)
The chief mitigating factor, I believe, is that your typical medieval knight, often enough farmer himself too with his own crops to tend besides his horseback riding job, and typically didn't have the time or resources to go harass the peasants, sheriff of Nottingham style.

Your example of peasants leaving the lord's land is a good example, btw -- I believe for most of the Middle Ages no one had the resource to enforce that!

plus i'm too cynical to believe that the medieval nobility's obsession with fame and honour wasn't marketing for some business model or other.

It was. Feudalism arose in a time when there wasn't a lot of money in circulation, not much of an administration, so everything had to be mediated through personal trust. That's why fealty, honor and the like are such important values.

Incidentally, that's why I don't think feudalism is a very good analog to capitalism, except in the broadest sense of 'bad, oppressive system.'

I guess that's OK with modern CEOs who can't think beyond 5 years anyway. But it seems like a step down from the robber barons, whose empires were built to last a hundred years.

I'm not sure about that. About ten years ago, I was a contractor for LVMH (that's Bernard Arnault's company, #1 on the Forbes list). They weren't exactly pleasant people or fun to work with but they were build to last a hundred years and planned accordingly.
Of course a luxury brand thrives on dusty handbags and mean old ladies tradition.

Tech is different -- there's more focus on the shiny new thing -- but it's pretty clear that, say, Microsoft plans to stay relevant for another fifty years, even if they don't say so openly. Or Amazon. (Notably, Amazon just doesn't do enshittification. You can expect their services to stay there.)

[zompist]

Tech is different -- there's more focus on the shiny new thing -- but it's pretty clear that, say, Microsoft plans to stay relevant for another fifty years, even if they don't say so openly. Or Amazon. (Notably, Amazon just doesn't do enshittification. You can expect their services to stay there.)

I'll grant you 40 years, since that's how old Microsoft is. But Microsoft isn't the behemoth it was in the 90s. It lost search to Google, Linux is surprisingly competitive for servers, and it lost out on the whole mobile market. Does it matter so much that they have 70% market share for desktop OS, when people increasingly rely on the computer in their pocket?

And that's on the stable side of tech! Facebook looked impregnable a few years ago. But in the US, its market share has gone from 70% to 36%. That should terrify Mr. Zuckerberg. If they can get his attention off of VR and AI.

As Torco said, the winning paradigm seemed to be to lock in a whole new platform... the problem is, someone else can come along and invent a whole new platform. Apple is probably the nimblest tech company, as it pivoted smartly from computers to music to phones.

Amazon is a canny business for sure; for years their business model was huge expansion at low profits. I suppose it's safe while Bezos is alive, but investors don't generally like that model forever.

[Ares Land]

But Microsoft isn't the behemoth it was in the 90s.

Surprisingly, it's bigger than it was in the 90s. Microsoft is currently worth 2.3 trillion. In the 90s it was worth around 200 billion, reaching 600 billion at the height of the dot com bubble. (*)
They're just not that much in the spotlight, and they're just not the one and only software company. I don't think it was realistic to expect them to keep a monopoly; in any case I don't think Gates did -- not after doing business alongside IBM in the 80s.
It's probably more comfortable for them that way. Nobody is calling them Micro$oft anymore; more seriously no one is threatening them with antitrust lawsuits.

Amazon is a canny business for sure; for years their business model was huge expansion at low profits. I suppose it's safe while Bezos is alive, but investors don't generally like that model forever.

I'm not an investor, so I really don't know. But isn't that pretty much the business model for supermarket chains, or retail in general?

All that being said... I checked the worth of a few tech actors and I kind of changed my mind : Microsoft is at 2.3 trillion, Apple 2.68, Amazon 1.31, Alphabet 1.65 and Meta a puny 772 billion.
Now, the stock market is really not my area of expertise, and I'm really not an investor... but these numbers feel absurdly high and there's something really fishy about that.

[Raphael]

All that being said... I checked the worth of a few tech actors and I kind of changed my mind : Microsoft is at 2.3 trillion, Apple 2.68, Amazon 1.31, Alphabet 1.65 and Meta a puny 772 billion.
Now, the stock market is really not my area of expertise, and I'm really not an investor... but these numbers feel absurdly high and there's something really fishy about that.

Another opportunity to post this classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I

[Ares Land]

Another opportunity to post this classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I

That was great! Besides, it took me a couple of minutes to realize this had been made 15 years ago.

[Raphael]

Besides, it took me a couple of minutes to realize this had been made 15 years ago.

The references to blogging as a hot new thing kind of give it away. And the pre-16:9 aspect ratio. Not much else, though.

[zompist]

Amazon is a canny business for sure; for years their business model was huge expansion at low profits. I suppose it's safe while Bezos is alive, but investors don't generally like that model forever.

I'm not an investor, so I really don't know. But isn't that pretty much the business model for supermarket chains, or retail in general?

In mature industries, yes— and retail is tanking. Our biggest retailer, Sears, went bankrupt. Other big-box stores are struggling or dead.

The thing is, investors want 10% growth— forever. (I'm talking about US investors; it may not be the same all over.) In a mature retail operation you may make steady money, but growth potential is more like 2%. (You can't open new stores once there's one every two miles; the only chance for growth is minor changes to stock or presentation: open in-store cafés, sell more prestige items, get rid of half the cashiers with self-service, whatever.) Plus, retail has to compete with Amazon. Thus the big money chases tech firms (which at least have the potential for 10% growth). Or someone comes in, buys the ailing retail firm, and sells it for scrap. (Its biggest asset is probably real estate.)

Supermarkets are still something of an exception, because delivery is not cost-effective. (You can sell that to the elite, but you can't expand that idea universally.)

It's pretty weird that capitalism is failing in its very basics— selling everyday stuff— but there we are.

FWIW I looked up stock performance for Albertson's (one of our biggest supermarket chains): 8% annual growth over the last 5 years. Compare Microsoft at 13%. (I would have expected a higher gap, actually! There's been a lot of mergers, so maybe that drove Albertson's growth.)

Amazon is actually lower at 6.5%! But the way Amazon is structured, Bezos controls the company no matter what the stock market thinks. So he's insulated from investor demands.

[Raphael]

The thing is, investors want 10% growth— forever. (I'm talking about US investors; it may not be the same all over.) In a mature retail operation you may make steady money, but growth potential is more like 2%. (You can't open new stores once there's one every two miles; the only chance for growth is minor changes to stock or presentation: open in-store cafés, sell more prestige items, get rid of half the cashiers with self-service, whatever.) Plus, retail has to compete with Amazon. Thus the big money chases tech firms (which at least have the potential for 10% growth). Or someone comes in, buys the ailing retail firm, and sells it for scrap. (Its biggest asset is probably real estate.)

Supermarkets are still something of an exception, because delivery is not cost-effective. (You can sell that to the elite, but you can't expand that idea universally.)

It's pretty weird that capitalism is failing in its very basics— selling everyday stuff— but there we are.

Quoted for truth. In order for capitalism to deliver at least partly on at least some of its promises, the average business has to run on razor-thin profit margins. But in our time, the capitalists themselves insist that all businesses should be extremely profitable. And the main difference between a business running on razor-thin profit margins and an extremely profitable business is that the latter has either higher prices or lower costs. In other words, that the latter sells overpriced crap.

(Apple might be an exception to that rule, but if so, that's because their quasi-monopoly on what you might call the luxury electronics market allows them to sell high-quality products at such high prices that they still make a lot of profits.)

[KathTheDragon]

It's pretty weird that capitalism is failing in its very basics— selling everyday stuff— but there we are.

Is it that weird? Where's the profit in everyday stuff?

[zompist]

It's pretty weird that capitalism is failing in its very basics— selling everyday stuff— but there we are.

Is it that weird? Where's the profit in everyday stuff?

Unca Zomp grew up in the caveman days when capitalism made everyone's life easier. Hard to believe these days, I know.

[Raphael]

It's pretty weird that capitalism is failing in its very basics— selling everyday stuff— but there we are.

Is it that weird? Where's the profit in everyday stuff?

Unca Zomp grew up in the caveman days when capitalism made everyone's life easier. Hard to believe these days, I know.

Oh, I'm a generation younger than you, and even I remember seeing the differences in general standards of living between mostly-capitalist and soviet-style economies myself, when I was a small child and we would occasionally visit some distant relatives in the East.

Being better than the alternative at providing most people with everyday stuff was one of the main things that allowed the capitalist world to win the First Cold War.

[Torco]

plus i'm too cynical to believe that the medieval nobility's obsession with fame and honour wasn't marketing for some business model or other.

It was. Feudalism arose in a time when there wasn't a lot of money in circulation, not much of an administration, so everything had to be mediated through personal trust. That's why fealty, honor and the like are such important values.

granted, and then fames functions as money: so say you're enfeoffed That Valley in demesne: you're probably going to want to tell bards and whoever to spread the word: good job offers mention the pay, or at least the working conditions and benefits and whatnot: Lord Ares has Land and offers any good catholic villain an livelyhood fair and prosperous, and seventy times a hundred square strides of lande flatte. and if you have sons, the whole family gets to eat at his great hall the first few months. if you're all famous and public opinion of you is mostly good, and people sing songs about how you dealt in manner most faire and christiane during that thing that happened six years ago, that's going to be much easier, no? same with Lord Ares calls upon all men-at-arms catholique and stronge to accompany him on his adventure to reconquer jerusalem. *especially* if overall social trust is low: as a peasant, you're facing a pretty high transaction cost, including "what if rich boi here *doesn't* let my family eat for free the first three monts? then i might as well not go.

Surprisingly, it's bigger than it was in the 90s. Microsoft is currently worth 2.3 trillion. In the 90s it was worth around 200 billion, reaching 600 billion at the height of the dot com bubble. (*)

but is it *a bigger chunk of the pie*, is I think the question, and that seems less clear to me.

It's pretty weird that capitalism is failing in its very basics— selling everyday stuff— but there we are.

well... i'm not saying the end is nigh, but that's what you'd expect of an economic system as it starts to break down, isn't it ? like... the soviet union and ancien regime both failed at the same time as people weren't able to purchase goods: gameboys and pineapples and... bread, respectively. If the stock market collapses in some way that doesn't make people stop producing food and whatever, then who cares that much.

[zompist]

It's pretty weird that capitalism is failing in its very basics— selling everyday stuff— but there we are.

well... i'm not saying the end is nigh, but that's what you'd expect of an economic system as it starts to break down, isn't it ? like... the soviet union and ancien regime both failed at the same time as people weren't able to purchase goods: gameboys and pineapples and... bread, respectively. If the stock market collapses in some way that doesn't make people stop producing food and whatever, then who cares that much.

Well, deprivation alone doesn't cause revolutions, or they'd be constant. The magic ingredient is the belief that things could be better.

Marxists have been predicting the collapse of capitalism for 175 years; with that track record, one should, as the Bayesians say, examine one's priors.

Ironically, technology has advanced to the point that socialism is actually viable. Dividing up the world's wealth equally would not have accomplished much in 1800 or 1900: everyone would still be dirt poor and doing manual labor. Today, plutocracy really is holding us back from general prosperity.

[alice]

Marxists have been predicting the collapse of communism for 175 years; with that track record, one should, as the Bayesians say, examine one's priors.

You do mean "capitalism", of course?

[Raphael]

Well, deprivation alone doesn't cause revolutions, or they'd be constant. The magic ingredient is the belief that things could be better.

Yes; compare Eric Hoffer's observation that the groups most likely to become active in political movements are the newly rich and the newly poor. The former have experienced that things can get better for them, and might now want even more improvement; the latter remember when things were better for them.

Marxists have been predicting the collapse of communism for 175 years;

I think you meant to write either "the collapse of capitalism" or "the arrival of communism".

with that track record, one should, as the Bayesians say, examine one's priors.

Exactly.

Ironically, technology has advanced to the point that socialism is actually viable. Dividing up the world's wealth equally would not have accomplished much in 1800 or 1900: everyone would still be dirt poor and doing manual labor. Today, plutocracy really is holding us back from general prosperity.

Great point. How do we get more people to see that?

[zompist]

Marxists have been predicting the collapse of communism for 175 years; with that track record, one should, as the Bayesians say, examine one's priors.

You do mean "capitalism", of course?

Yep. They look about the same on the page.

[Torco]

lmao.

I mean... it'll eventually break, but yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if the date of expiration was anno domini 2700 or something.

Ironically, technology has advanced to the point that socialism is actually viable. Dividing up the world's wealth equally would not have accomplished much in 1800 or 1900: everyone would still be dirt poor and doing manual labor. Today, plutocracy really is holding us back from general prosperity.

yet another thing marxists have been saying forever: nono, *now* is the time quantity becomes quality, comrade! now take this mosin nagant and defend that bridge.

Great point. How do we get more people to see that?

maybe a p2p protocol that coordinates labour and resource allocation? you know, you get points, and those points then let you order pizza.

[KathTheDragon]

you know, you get points, and those points then let you order pizza.

This is actually horrifying.

[Ares Land]

In mature industries, yes— and retail is tanking. Our biggest retailer, Sears, went bankrupt. Other big-box stores are struggling or dead.

The thing is, investors want 10% growth— forever. (I'm talking about US investors; it may not be the same all over.)

I got the impression that investors here in Europe are more reasonable. They sort of accept that 10% growth all the time is not possible -- though very grudgingly; they look wistfully at the US business climate.

One notable fact is that our financial press is very admiring of US growth this last couple of years. The contrast with what I read from Americans here is very stark.

Ironically, technology has advanced to the point that socialism is actually viable. Dividing up the world's wealth equally would not have accomplished much in 1800 or 1900: everyone would still be dirt poor and doing manual labor. Today, plutocracy really is holding us back from general prosperity.

The paradox is that plutocracy is breaking capitalism. American prosperity, for instance, correlates with cheap college education -- not really a thing these days. I'm also reminded of Chile (hi Torco!), run according to Chicago school gospel but not exactly a powerhouse.

[alice]

Marxists have been predicting the collapse of communism for 175 years; with that track record, one should, as the Bayesians say, examine one's priors.

You do mean "capitalism", of course?

Yep. They look about the same on the page.

And thus is Horseshoe Theory vindicated.