You didn’t describe a problem exclusive to Miscrosft. You described the entire problem with Capitalism. Endless growth is fiction; yet corporations are beholden to shareholders that demand endless growth.
It’s dumber than that. Capitalism does not demand endless growth from any one company. The overall economy grows, sure, but that may come from other economic sectors. Exxon and Chevron haven’t seen significant growth for a couple decades, because the oil market hasn’t seen significant growth. That does not make them communist. They can just exist at an equilibrium.
Big Tech has a peculiar economic model centered around high fixed costs (R&D) and low marginal costs (digital distribution), which has made a handful of companies unbelievably cash-flush as they reaped insane scale effects. And they simply don’t know what to do with so much cash.
Capitalism is supposed to answer that with a reduction in income from competitive pressure. If something is so profitable to do, someone else will do it cheaper. However, such competition does not exist because neoliberal governments have abdicated their mandate to foster competition through trust-busting and forced interoperability.
That’s not to say capitalism is good or anything. But even within capitalism, what happened with Big Tech was avoidable.
Either way US Big Tech is not capitalist anymore. It’s an autocratic oligarchy with capitalist characteristics.
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You didn’t describe a problem exclusive to Miscrosft. You described the entire problem with Capitalism. Endless growth is fiction; yet corporations are beholden to shareholders that demand endless growth.
It’s dumber than that. Capitalism does not demand endless growth from any one company. The overall economy grows, sure, but that may come from other economic sectors. Exxon and Chevron haven’t seen significant growth for a couple decades, because the oil market hasn’t seen significant growth. That does not make them communist. They can just exist at an equilibrium.
Big Tech has a peculiar economic model centered around high fixed costs (R&D) and low marginal costs (digital distribution), which has made a handful of companies unbelievably cash-flush as they reaped insane scale effects. And they simply don’t know what to do with so much cash.
Capitalism is supposed to answer that with a reduction in income from competitive pressure. If something is so profitable to do, someone else will do it cheaper. However, such competition does not exist because neoliberal governments have abdicated their mandate to foster competition through trust-busting and forced interoperability.
That’s not to say capitalism is good or anything. But even within capitalism, what happened with Big Tech was avoidable.
Either way US Big Tech is not capitalist anymore. It’s an autocratic oligarchy with capitalist characteristics.