HP launched a subscription service today that rents people a printer, allots them a specific amount of printed pages, and sends them ink for a monthly fee. HP is framing its service as a way to simplify printing for families and small businesses, but the deal also comes with monitoring and a years-long commitment.
#technology #tech #hardware #computers #printers #subscriptions #hp
I have this unsubstantiated theory but hear me out. I challenge an economist to look into this. Anyways, shareholder focus has replaced capitalism, even late stage capitalism, with something else. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s whatever this subscription milk every penny movement is now built to support. It’s like revenue maximization on steroids, like we must seek revenue maximization while remaining 100% efficient in revenue pursuit.
And it’s killing everything in the way. There’s no give.
Economist, get your nobel prize. What is this phenomena?
I think you may have confused capitalism with commerce.
Capitalism is about leveraging capital to generate wealth for the capital owner. The purist form of this is a subscription basedbsales model, where you always maintain ownership of assets, but everyone else pays you for access to them.
Capitalism is rent seeking. It will always devolve to this, given the opportunity, because this is the most efficient way of accruing more wealth, and that is what capitalism optimizes for.
Commerce exists separately from capitalism. It’s just a form of trade.