Private equity buying companies and sucking them dry to make a profit is also big factor
this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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oh society has lots of problems.
trying to fit it into one comment can be difficult but i can list some issues that i perceive:
- there's no long-term plan. none at all. nobody has an idea what humanity will look like in 100+ years. that leads to considerable uncertainty in the youth, which definitely makes their mental health difficulties more severe.
I think it's short-termism combined with capitalism.
Capitalism tells people that success equals money. Short-termism tells people to focus on how much they can grab right now.
Look at the actions of C-suite level people. They do what they can to increase profits this year to get a massive bonus this year. If that means laying off half the company that's ok because they're incentivised to maximise profits now. So they do. The next year they're off to a different job at a different company and they will get that job because "When I was CEO of Mongoose & Felcher I increased YOY global profit by 270%". Their focus is never on the actual well-being of the company or its employees or on the social or environmental impact of the company because their bonus isn't dependent on those things.
Politicians are much the same. If they're not in power they want to get into power. If they are in power they have to act as quickly as possible to achieve their aims because they might only be in power for a single term.
One of my favourite 'business' ideas came from Gus Levy who was CEO of Goldman Sachs back in the 1970s. He came up with the term 'long-term greedy.' The idea was that you dealt fairly and honestly with your clients, never gouged them, kept your word, and did a good job. Sure, you might make slightly less profit from those clients this year but you would keep them as clients next year too.
No-one seems to be long-term greedy anymore.
We're in the late stage of capitalism.
Depends on how you look at things.
Compare your life to the life of people 1 century ago, 2 centuries ago, etc…
News, social networks focus on shit. Lot of things improve. But news only focus on what is going wrong.
Lot if things are shit, but lot other things aren’t.
This. How many of your childhood friends survived to adulthood? How many famines have you lived through? Have you ever received modern medicine? Do you know anyone who's shit themselves to death (a surprisingly common cause of death back when)? Are you literate?
I'll not try and tell anyone things are peachy, because they're clearly not. But a lot of things are so so so much better than they used to be. Most of us lead lives that would make Pharos of old green with envy.
The root source of things being shit nowadays is capitalism. Capitalism only nows one direction: upwards. Each quarter profits have to exceed the preceding quarter. The result is that products and services get worse over time, because in order to make more profit than the last time, corners have to be cut.
The new iteration of a product gets more flimsy, because they use cheaper materials, or they alter the design to save on material. Or products have a built-in life span (e.g. batteries that cannot be replaced or limited software updates or intentional software incompatibility).
When it comes to digital services, features will be stripped over time or the customer has to pay additionally for a feature that was once included. Or they arbitrarily limit the number of devices one can use the service on. They can do it, because most customers are not prone to change a specific online service, beacuse it either is a hassle or existing alternatives do not offer the same content diversity.
The same goes for operating systems, albeit they are rather not stripped of functions, but new bullshit features that no one asked for get implemented (best example is the implementation of AI features into the operating system (Windows - Copilot or Apple - Apple intelligence) that - in case of both - forces users to even replace their hardware). Tech companies know they can pull shit like this off, because (and this mostly applies to professional users) some users need to run specific niche software on their computers that is programmed for a specific OS exclusively.
The whole AI craze is just to make money (selling data) off of the user and also forcing them to buy the new thing, because tech companies took care of deliberately designing everything in a way that it is incompatible with older hardware.
One major problem with this is that, although capitalism is the cause of it all, we all grew up with capitalism and are stuck inside the system up to a point where we profit off of it in certain parts. Having the new shiny thing availiable at any time is the nice part of it. Having to work more for less compensation (because company already builds everything cheaper and now comes for your wages/ salary in order to make profit) is the disadvantage of it. There theoretically is a solution for it: Socialism. Theoretically, because it doesn't account for the desire of people to gain power over stuff and/ or other people.
But what can I do? I'm so tired
First of all - don't overthink it! There are so many factors that play into this whole ordeal that a single person can't change. As other posters have said: Not all is bad. Always keep in mind that on the internet, these things seem to be much more dire than they are.
When it comes to the things I described in my post: Try to buy consciously. Assess if you really need the thing (example: If you alredy own a laptop and a smartphone - is there really a need for a tablet?). Try to buy things that last longer. Most products come in basically three price ranges: cheap, mid-price, overly priced. On most occasions it is sufficient to go with the mid-price range. This mostly offers the best price-performance-ratio. If you buy cheap you buy twice in the end (first for the cheap thing, then for the more expensive version that you should have bought to begin with). If you buy overly priced you probably are wasting money for a thing that could have been cheaper in the first place.
If you are not satisfied with digital services, then leave them for an alternative. For instance, I was unsatisfied with my bank. They tried to pull something off, thinking I will put up with it. I did some research and now I have changed my bank, even with better conditions than before. It was easier than I thought. The same goes with email providers or phone providers. If they enshittify their service for you, go to their competitor. Nowadays you can port your phone number with you. Companies are accounting for their users' laziness. That is why they can pull shit off in the first place.
When it comes to computers and operating systems, there is something you can do already: Go through all your settings and switch off all things you don't need (e.g. telemetry data, uninstall programs you do not use). If you don't know what a specific setting does or if it is needed, just look it up on the internet. Chances are great that at least one other person on this planet has the same question (that has been answered hopefully).
If your computer reaches its end-of-life, because the upcoming operating system is not compatible any longer, try to look out for an alternative. With a Linux-bases operating system, your old hardware might get some extra years to come. I think these have come a long way. 25 years ago I experienced myself with Linux, and it was awful! That might have changed now, and especially here on Lemmy there are many resources and users happy to help.
Try to use alternative programs, perferrably free- and open source. Or, alternatively, look out for programs that you can buy once and that do not operate as a subscription service. If you own a program legally (by having it bought once), it can't be taken away from you. When you subscribe to a program, companies always can take features away or make you pay more for them. This also applies for media as well.
With these things taken into consideration, you will feel less powerless and a bit more in control of things. And it probably will save you money in the long run.
We are losing the class war.
It apparently is human nature to select leaders who are susceptible to corruption and incentivized to propagate the corrupt systems. I believe we need a solution where we have full traceability and hold leaders accountable, I have never seen anything close to this in my lifetime. Perhaps it is because we have collectively left the wolves to guard the henhouse? Replace the wolves with dogs who are aligned with human best interests.
Because greed allows us to ignore the fact we aren't accounting for the limits of this planet. We get to use greed to justify complete moral abandon, which in today's world can be really damaging. A few people are getting rich atm by tearing the world apart, it won't lead to good things.
But our system isn't designed to communicate the good around you to you, it's the opposite pretty much. The good is there it just doesn't brag, or shout or mock. It's quiet but it spreads. But you know when is is gone. It is conspicuous in its absence
Because you are staring at the pain rectangle and being bombarded with every bad thing that is happening in the entire planet nonstop.
Your ape brain was not meant for this. Imagine if you lived in the 1300s -- Plague, famines, wars, pogroms. They had it all. But any one human being would only ever hear about whatever bad things were happening near to them.
Idk I don't even follow the news anymore, and I don't need to to see that everything is shit all around me, everywhere
But you don't need to be following the news personally.
Many people around you are.
Those people have this perception, and so they act accordingly. You are looking at memes? Well it's a matter of hours until you see a meme about wanting to die on 196 or whatever. You watching TV Shows? Yeah TV Shows are entirely drunk on the zeitgeist and the zeitgeist is one of despair.
Ergo. You are surrounded by people who think everything is fucked (tm) -- And therefore you'll also feel like everything is fucked (tm)
Idk, every close person around me seems to be (mostly) ok with the way things are, or at least much more so than I am.
That's what I keep telling kids, we're not evolved to live this way. It doesn't feel right because your a round peg in a square building. We're evolved for tribe life, telling stories around the fire, cooking food for each other, helping out our small communities, together. Singing and dancing and story telling, caring for our soil and water and animals. Yes we should go to the stars, and test the boundaries of reality, but we won't get there and feel like we really did something worth doing without being who we truly are, free to love, free to wonder, free to explore, free to be alive, free to be just happy. It isn't worth it if we aren't happy. We need to find out happy place again if we're going to survive the next few centuries.
I agree with you.
who we truly are, free to love, free to wonder, free to explore, free to be alive, free to be just happy. It isn’t worth it if we aren’t happy. We need to find out happy place again if we’re going to survive the next few centuries.
What you're describing here, i call "self-determination". Being who/what you truly are. It's incredibly important, maybe the most important thing we have to consider.
Greed and self interest.
Either greed or hate, depends on the thing that is shit.
because you're old
Whats not old?
It's because everything is literally made of shit, or fecal matter if you prefer.
Because humans.
"As a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery." - Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999)
I went back in time and farted on a puppy. Sorry. You really should have seen the original timeline. We had blimps, universal healthcare, and six seasons of Firefly
Did you have vests though?
Humanity went wrong when we abandoned vests.
Not trolling: social media. It's a mind virus used by both sides to ignite hate and culture wars. It uses 9 second video clips to project the actions of the few onto the many, making you hate entire groups of people without understanding basic statistics. The "feel it in your gut" crowd chose those words for very specific reasons.
Social media is a curse.
social media. It’s a mind virus
I agree. Ideas in general are like a virus living in our brains. (They mostly consist of small packages of information. They require a host for metabolism / real effect. They spread from human to human.) The internet facilitates the spreading of these viruses; which often overwhelms the participating humans. In theory, it can/will also lead to a lot of innovation, because ideas spread more rapidly/easily. In practice, i think it does, but it also leads to virus-infection-like / fever-like symptoms, including: nausea, feeling of weakness (whenever reading political news).
Amen brother
Everyone knows that racism and hate was invented in 2006 by Mark Zuckerberg.
Social Media isn’t innately harmful. But it’s been abused by the powerful to control the masses. The same as religion, print, radio, and television before it
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You see what you want to see.
Things aren’t great but not “everything is shit.”
Come live in a poor country and start being positive when the grocery prices go up every week
This is a serious get off the Internet moment. This place and the predecessor are absolute doom and gloom 24/7, but I took my kids to the park earlier and we threw rocks in the stream and hung out under a bridge, and it was a nice day, and we had fun. I join in my community cleanups, I plant trees, I take part in things, and I love my town. Yeah, on a global scale, it ain't pretty, but I do what I can to make my little bubble a pleasant place to be.
Exactly!
I went out to some stores and got him driving on an interstate for the first time as a student driver today. It is gorgeous out and we just enjoyed each others company for a few hours.
Unchecked capitalism.
This is the one true root cause answer.
it isn't
if you are assuming everything's shit and looking for justification then i would say it's probably caused by chakra mis-alignment
~~Unchecked~~ capitalism.
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