Isn’t that a prerequisite for enshitification? Publicly-traded companies are required (by law, I think) to maximize profits for their shareholders, even if that means utterly ruining their original product (Reddit, Boeing, etc.), yes? What do you think?
Every single comment here is describing symptoms but not the cause.
Enshitification is the evolution to the final form, only possible after the company, thru merger/acquisition or stock manipulation (leveraged buy outs, acquiring controlling stake, shorting a company into insolvency, etc), has achieved a commanding monopoly.
Then it flexes it’s monopoly powers, the buttons fly off its shirt and the monster shows it’s true colors.
We have laws to prevent this. Lina Khan is the first FTC chair to start holding these companies to meaningful account in my lifetime (yea, Microsoft/netscape is exponentially smaller than todays issues). Meta, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon all need to be broken up into a thousand different companies, same as we did with AT&T. Uber, Angieslist, homeaglow, all the contractors pretending they’re just networking hubs (like some union hall) need to busted up and gigwork made to contend with employment law, which it can’t, because it’s all bad faith exploitation.
And for fucks sake we need to make the fine for white collar crime that extends state lines to necessitate the forfeiture of the entire C-suite’s and board of directors assets, both domestically and internationally, upon threat of seal team 6. Empty their bank accounts and leave them with nothing, like they regularly do to employees. They’re so fucking smart they can earn it all again, right? Right!? Corporations are the largest thief in the land, just in WAGE THEFT. Everything else they do that’s slimy is all BONUS. The 2nd largest thief in all the land? the fucking Police force. The lunatics have taken over the asylum, democracy doesn’t work in mental institutions. We don’t need to defund the police, we need to fire all of them and start over with transparency. If casino employees can be video taped all day, so can cops. Fuck em.
What America truly needs is another Teddy Roosevelt. We need to revive the Progressive party with the Bull Moose as the symbol. Protect the environment, protect the family by protecting the workers, end legal loopholes and trustbust the 1% back down into the 10%.
And if we don’t? The path ahead is obvious, I for one, don’t want to live in Blade Runner, but that’s where we’re going until we stop fucking around and right ship.
I’m really emotionally and mentally exhausted. But what you just wrote makes me think you are my spirit animal. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s nice to see that other people are identifying a major issue and care about it.
I’m flattered. Thank you.
I told my wife if we ever decided on kids (which we won’t) I want to name the kid after my hero. She asked “who’s that?”.
“Mega man”
“What if it’s a girl?”
“We can call her Meg”
"Middle name?”
“No middle name. MegaBlake, that’s it.”
I’m wearing a mega man belt she bought me right now actually.🤓
And unlike with AT&T, after divestiture there needs to be an order in place that perpetually prevents the divested companies from ever merging or buying each other up. At this point AT&T has almost completely re-formed from the companies it was broken into, and that should never have been allowed.
Absolutely this. We need to abolish corporate personhood, and hold company leadership directly responsible for the company’s behavior. Since it is the people who are doing these things. The “company” isn’t some autonomous entity that has a will of its own. People drive it, and those people should be held accountable.