Technology
Which posts fit here?
Anything that is at least tangentially connected to the technology, social media platforms, informational technologies and tech policy.
Rules
1. English only
Title and associated content has to be in English.
2. Use original link
Post URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
3. Respectful communication
All communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. Inclusivity
Everyone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacks
Any kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangents
Stay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may apply
If something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.
Companion communities
[email protected]
[email protected]
Icon attribution | Banner attribution
If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @[email protected].
view the rest of the comments
I don't think VCs have "killed" value per se, more that they established conditions which were ultimately unsustainable and resulted in inevitable enshittification.
The 00's and 10's were absolutely riddled with tech companies that had seemingly limitless volumes of VC funding. They were not profitable in the slightest, but the funding kept coming because they got so big, they had potential, and everyone wanted a piece. The big companies wanted to use the advantage of basically "free" money to kill any and all competition before their VC funding was burned up, so they all offered "too good to be true" services that we all got used to which no one else could compete with.
Eventually the VC money began drying up as the economy got worse and firms began opting for safer investments. But the threshold has been crossed: the big players became entrenched and competition was eliminated wherever possible. No new competitors can grow because the same conditions fueled by VC funding in the 00's and 10's will likely not happen again. Meanwhile, the big companies that spent years operating in the red now need to turn a profit, so they start working on ways to further capitalize on their products and services. Hence we see rapidly rising subscription costs, paywalls, more ads than content, newer products that are worse than preceding ones in many ways, user data collection everywhere, mass layoffs/abusive working conditions, etc.