Part of this has been a long-standing move by every industry to prioritize business-to-business sales as opposed to consumer sales simply because businesses have money and consumers don’t, because businesses are pocketing all the profits and refusing to pay their employees (consumers) a living wage, let alone a thriving wage.
It’s been a long time coming for the PC industry, because it’s been a general trend for at least two decades as sales to business have become more profitable over consumer sales ever since the late 90s.
It’s just more evidence that the bottom 90% of earners are just being priced out of anything but bare subsistence and the wealthy do not give a single fuck about it, in fact, they’re embracing it.
I am so glad to see someone else talking about this. Yeah, We’re going back to feudalism… And only the upper ranks of society will be able to afford goods and be able to engage in trade.
I mean, it’s very arguable that we’ve just been doing “feudalism with extra steps” for a very long time anyway.
To be less US/Europe-centric than my original post, the majority of the world has been in the “priced out of anything but bare subsistence” basket for most of the history of modern capitalism. Only the citizens of the Imperial Democracies of the Western world were benefiting while the majority of the Southern and Eastern hemispheres were simply locked out from being beneficiaries either through trade embargoes or outright exploitation via not paying foreign workers the home-country equivalent, and instead paying them a much lower “localized” rate.
It’s really that the Imperial Boomerang has finally made it’s way home to the citizens of the West.
Yet another lie of capitalism- that demand dictates supply. If people want something, capitalism will solve the problem because greed will solve every problem, right? WRONG. It doesn’t take into consideration that scale and logistics and infrastructure and mass production all collude and interact in ways that can and will easily create isolated and unexpected functional consequences just like this one.
Capitalism itself is such a dumb and evil creation that the only thing that keeps it running is to have laws that limit its destructive power- unfortunately, since money is power, capitalism quickly supersedes rule of law and democracy, creating a system of government where feudal lords rule over what basically amounts to serfdom. Surely a more comfortable serfdom than in the 1300’s, but most certainly lacking the basic freedoms of a democratic society, and only so long as the lords so wish and comfort isn’t taken away at their whims due to opposition or otherwise.
The whole economy reminds me more and more of the decline of the Roman Empire. Their biggest problem was that there were no consumers left to keep money in circulation and the economy afloat. You either owned lots of land and slaves that provided pretty much everything you need or you were a slave, meaning the only one you could trade with were merchants from outside the empire but as the empire expanded, those became harder to reach. War expenses spiraled out of control while the economy declined until it ceased to exist.
Now mega corps only trade with each other and threaten to replace all workers with AI and robots. Meanwhile the economy becomes stale, people buy less while politicians around the globe cut down the social sector, meaning people will have even less money to spare. Money won‘t circulate as much, slowing things down even further.
There are ways out of this spiral of decline but billionaires won‘t give up so easily. You can say many things about them but they are persistent as hell.
You can say many things about them but they are persistent as hell.
That persistence is a type of sociopathy, though. It’s an antisocial personality disorder. Sure, they’re persistent, but they’re persistent at pursuing absolutely terrible things for personal gain that effectively means nothing considering they already have enough power and money to make Solomon blush. It’s a mental disorder where they need more and more and more while they have more than they could ever use in their entire lifetimes and in their grandchildren’s their grandchildren’s lifetimes.
So even that is honestly a negative thing, there’s literally not a positive thing you can say about them, because everything they do is couched in being the most selfish, proud (for no good reason), and narcissistic fuckers alive.
Oh I never ever intended to imply it‘s a good thing. It just is. They won‘t give in or can be reasoned with. They became billionaires because they care about money, status and power.
Part of this has been a long-standing move by every industry to prioritize business-to-business sales as opposed to consumer sales simply because businesses have money and consumers don’t, because businesses are pocketing all the profits and refusing to pay their employees (consumers) a living wage, let alone a thriving wage.
It’s been a long time coming for the PC industry, because it’s been a general trend for at least two decades as sales to business have become more profitable over consumer sales ever since the late 90s.
It’s just more evidence that the bottom 90% of earners are just being priced out of anything but bare subsistence and the wealthy do not give a single fuck about it, in fact, they’re embracing it.
I am so glad to see someone else talking about this. Yeah, We’re going back to feudalism… And only the upper ranks of society will be able to afford goods and be able to engage in trade.
I mean, it’s very arguable that we’ve just been doing “feudalism with extra steps” for a very long time anyway.
To be less US/Europe-centric than my original post, the majority of the world has been in the “priced out of anything but bare subsistence” basket for most of the history of modern capitalism. Only the citizens of the Imperial Democracies of the Western world were benefiting while the majority of the Southern and Eastern hemispheres were simply locked out from being beneficiaries either through trade embargoes or outright exploitation via not paying foreign workers the home-country equivalent, and instead paying them a much lower “localized” rate.
It’s really that the Imperial Boomerang has finally made it’s way home to the citizens of the West.
Eat the rich!
Yet another lie of capitalism- that demand dictates supply. If people want something, capitalism will solve the problem because greed will solve every problem, right? WRONG. It doesn’t take into consideration that scale and logistics and infrastructure and mass production all collude and interact in ways that can and will easily create isolated and unexpected functional consequences just like this one.
Capitalism itself is such a dumb and evil creation that the only thing that keeps it running is to have laws that limit its destructive power- unfortunately, since money is power, capitalism quickly supersedes rule of law and democracy, creating a system of government where feudal lords rule over what basically amounts to serfdom. Surely a more comfortable serfdom than in the 1300’s, but most certainly lacking the basic freedoms of a democratic society, and only so long as the lords so wish and comfort isn’t taken away at their whims due to opposition or otherwise.
Fuck this shit.
The whole economy reminds me more and more of the decline of the Roman Empire. Their biggest problem was that there were no consumers left to keep money in circulation and the economy afloat. You either owned lots of land and slaves that provided pretty much everything you need or you were a slave, meaning the only one you could trade with were merchants from outside the empire but as the empire expanded, those became harder to reach. War expenses spiraled out of control while the economy declined until it ceased to exist.
Now mega corps only trade with each other and threaten to replace all workers with AI and robots. Meanwhile the economy becomes stale, people buy less while politicians around the globe cut down the social sector, meaning people will have even less money to spare. Money won‘t circulate as much, slowing things down even further.
There are ways out of this spiral of decline but billionaires won‘t give up so easily. You can say many things about them but they are persistent as hell.
That persistence is a type of sociopathy, though. It’s an antisocial personality disorder. Sure, they’re persistent, but they’re persistent at pursuing absolutely terrible things for personal gain that effectively means nothing considering they already have enough power and money to make Solomon blush. It’s a mental disorder where they need more and more and more while they have more than they could ever use in their entire lifetimes and in their grandchildren’s their grandchildren’s lifetimes.
So even that is honestly a negative thing, there’s literally not a positive thing you can say about them, because everything they do is couched in being the most selfish, proud (for no good reason), and narcissistic fuckers alive.
Oh I never ever intended to imply it‘s a good thing. It just is. They won‘t give in or can be reasoned with. They became billionaires because they care about money, status and power.