this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
1131 points (98.5% liked)

Technology

60055 readers
3751 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Number1SummerJam 106 points 1 year ago (8 children)

When will the greed stop? At what point will these corporations realize that the average American is completely stretched thin financially and will have to cease unnecessary expenses? They’re all just shooting themselves in the foot.

[–] Mannimarco 139 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"When will the greed stop?"

Never

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It‘s laughable to expect corporations to act against their only purpose. As soon as a company sells shares it takes the route of infinite growth which is impossible. First they grow their user base and once they start to inevitably stagnate, they start milking their costumers, shaving off features and laying off workers in order to grow their income. It is really the only way for them to remain existent when the market is saturated. They cannot stay in business when they make billions a year when these billions aren‘t even more billions than last year. You can‘t attract new investors that way and therefore cannot continue to exist. Enshittyfication only just started. It cannot possibly get better when they can‘t expand their user base, only worse. They know they will self destruct eventually, but that doesn‘t matter as long as shareholders get their piece of the cake and jump ship to sink the next one. Just being a massively profitable company is bad business if you‘re not growing. That‘s the state of capitalism we‘re in.

[–] kinsnik 9 points 1 year ago

As soon as a company sells shares it takes the route of infinite growth which is impossible

yeah, the stock market makes that a company that is stable and generates a reliable income each year is seen as bad, but a company that has large grow in obviously unsustainable speed, which doesn't have plans on how to ever become profitable is good (i am not specifically taking about netflix here)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Seems like, at a certain point in your growth and success, you could use your billions to buy back stock. That could keep the stock price high, which keeps investors happy. Once you've bought back enough stock, you can effectively go private again, with all of the growth paid for by investors.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

When the platform dies.

“first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. “

Source

[–] AllonzeeLV 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Incorrect.

It will stop when our species exterminates itself out of greed.

Climate change will probably only thin our numbers by the billions as a result of of the owner's greed, but then they want to profit off AI, and CRISPR, and innumerable other potentially profitable means to our self-extinction.

The greed will stop when all the humans are dead almost certainly by our own hands, and humans are actively working to accomplish this.

[–] AProfessional 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As consolidation continues corporations do not need to compete on prices as there are no alternatives. Yes people will pirate but they’ve already lobbied vendors to embrace DRM and governments to make it illegal so that makes it as annoying as possible.

[–] Carobu 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Are we reading the same thing? Netflix has more competition now than it ever has. When Netflix had cheaper prices when it has no competition than it does now. Piracy has been making a huge resurgence as well.

[–] query 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"More competition" meaning less access, people having to pay for multiple different services instead of having it in one place.

The competition should be about having the best platform, not exclusive content. There's no reason why the same show couldn't be on two different platforms. And available globally. Practically, all you really need is more local servers for where there's more traffic.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

The competition should be about having the best platform, not exclusive content.

Those both sound like competition to me. What you are really asking for is "I want things to be cheaper" which is a separate and sometimes related issue to competition, but separate nonetheless.

The path to lower prices the way you want would be government-mandated price controls on the industry.

[–] SinningStromgald 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The path to lower prices the way you want would be government-mandated price controls on the industry.

Now you're just talking dirty cause you can.

[–] partial_accumen 2 points 1 year ago

The path to lower prices the way you want would be government-mandated price controls on the industry.

Mandatory price controls can be tricky economically. I could certainly consider them on thinks required for living (food, housing, fuel), but putting them on optional entertainment like streaming? That sounds very counter productive.

[–] AProfessional 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

When Netflix started they entered the market as a licensor of content from studios to be distributed as part of a streaming service.

This possibility largely no longer exists. All of the studios have bought out competition, stopped licensing a lot of their popular content, and now release their content themselves. This means there is little competition in the film distribution market for streaming, beyond PayPerView.

[–] pete_the_cat 10 points 1 year ago

Oh you sweet summer child....

America is founded on greed and power, it'll never stop.

[–] Fribbtastic 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As long as people pay for it and they make massive profits through it.

I mean, look at the last situation in which netflix addressed account sharing. Their user number actually increased because of it from what I have read.

Those people that can't afford it will most likely switch to a less expensive tier and then probably see ads. I have seen that recently with my father who wasn't even bothered or annoyed by the constant ads while watching a single episode.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't understand how people are ok with ads? They annoy me so much. It's wasting your time so it can attempt to manipulate you into buying stuff with the money you can't afford to spend.

[–] uberkalden 8 points 1 year ago

When enough people cancel. Keep paying, they'll keep raising the price.

[–] Ado 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We keep saying this but they keep profiting more and more every time lol. Remember when everyone on reddit was gonna quit Netflix for the password sharing block? Ya, their users increased afterwards.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be fair, we only have their word for how many subscribers they have.

[–] Ado 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If Netflix is out right lying, I'm sure stockholders would be happy and not tank the stock at all

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As long as they are profitable, and the stock price is up, the stockholders wouldn't even question their user numbers.

[–] Ado 1 points 1 year ago

Lol no, stockholders wouldn't want to risk the fallout of Netflix being caught

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

AND KILL THE AMERICAN DREAM THAT ANY MAN CAN BE KING?! might as well just side with those broke natives /s

[–] deleted 3 points 1 year ago

They’ll stop if everyone sailed the high seas.