> they converted it to a subreddit with 1.5k subscribers.
That definitely belongs in a textbook on absurd corporate decisions.
I thought you must have been exaggerating somewhere, but nope, that is exactly how it went.
That definitely belongs in a textbook on absurd corporate decisions.
I thought you must have been exaggerating somewhere, but nope, that is exactly how it went.
Today's social media corporations are so fat with (venture) capital that they can, and do, spend that kind of money just to keep any potential competitors locked out. TikTok, the last social network that became truly big, was launched in 2016, seven years ago. Seven years without any new player entering the space. That's an eternity. I can promise you this wouldn't be happening without (very costly) interventions from above.
Modern tech capitalism doesn’t want to compete in the “let the best product win”-space. It’s just not enough money and making stuff is hit or miss. They want to own access and rent-seek. At least that’s my interpretation.
That's simply -not- capitalism.
The point is to show the contradictions of market liberalism, how they never fulfill their ideals and by necessity lead to the conditions under which we live. Communism simply says: let's live in a society without money, without a state, without class. Where one fishes in the morning, hunts in the afternoon, and debates in the evening. Where we live, produce, and labor in a social fashion, where people's basic sexual and physical needs are always attended to as the highest priority of the collective. Where each and every person is given the opportunity to pursue the fullest extent of what they can be as a person, to flourish as a human being.
Somewhere in here the Soviet Union fits in: for having the highest degree of sexual freedom, for guaranteed housing and jobs, for fair working hours and a living wage, for gender parity in all aspects of life. All at the expense of a vast police and security complex employed to crush potential dissent, and to use those political prisoners as a free pool of labor in order to compete with western late-capitalist states (which they failed to do).
The Dengists succeeded by simulating market capitalism to generate the industrial conditions necessary to move towards a more fully socialized state--the Soviet Union, on the other hand, was never willing to subject their backwards populations to industrial capitalism, which led to even greater violence in some respects. People wonder how far it will actually take them, we'll see...but the CCP seems to be uninterested in an internationalist movement.
I think that the basic propositions of Communism are mostly appealing, its just that people are not sure how to get there. We've had successes, like the Paris Commune, that were ruthlessly crushed by the state--they don't tend to last very long. Is there a way to achieve revolution without strict military disciplinary measures? After all, the hierarchies of an army nearly reproduce the hierarchies of capitalism with marked precision. Short answer, nobody knows, the French almost had a successful revolution in 1968, that failed, they spent many decades theorizing why, alternatives to an armed movement. Foucault, the great French theorist against disciplinarian social organization, became a neoliberal. Many of those who descend from these french thinkers became Neoliberals, like Jonah Peretti (who founded Buzzfeed) or Nick Land. You could also call them accelerationists, who believe that by accelerating the contradictions of capital one can bring down capitalist society faster, as it will end up crushing itself.
Everybody knows the system doesn't work, we're all sick of it, but nobody knows what to do about it. Everything else besides plain and simple labor organizing seems like a lost cause. Anybody who says anything else is usually confused or in someone else's pocket. We had a nearly international, decentralized protest movement only a few years ago that could've toppled multiple governments if the people were angry enough. You don't think the people won't get angry again?
1. Have an excellent business idea 2. ? 3. Profit!
Also why does reddit mobile site lag? Takes 5-10 seconds of the stupid icon before you see the text. Compare it to instant i.reddit or old.reddit.
Are they so incompetent that they cannot write a site that doesnt lag? Or they just dont care?
They don't seem to understand a couple key things, one of which is that if they can't make a website work, I will not install other things they make. They break trust.
Hacksaw Bob: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kZtN3XTk5w0 Whole series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOLArO56vjuqhmPDfbLGa...
Dubsmash had a sizable userbase with almost no overlap with Reddit's and their conversion rate appears to be less than 0.01%
Guess how long we lasted before being "brought into the fold".
Mo 1-3 is new owners finding all the buried bodies, and restructuring leadership with people they can trust
3-6 mos is learning who is valuable and who is not (overlap with months 1-3)
6-9 mos is predicting how customers will react to X change or Y Change
9-12mos is final legal review of changes, exit packages, PR statements,etc (especially is mass layoffs are involved)
12-18mos is execution time frame for layoffs, and restructure of the organization
After the first year is when people get fired.
Not many people got fired though, only a few managers (who to be fair, were a bit useless). Most others left "voluntarily" after the corp changes were made (you know, the ones that definitely weren't going to be made). It wasn't so bad though, we all got a good deal.
Is this really the kind of competition that made reddit quake in its boots? Like, I never heard of Dubsmash until now but this was still around the later years of Vine.
Reddit is an aggregator so from what I understand here, social media that encourages original creations/re-creations are a commodity, not competition. As seen by how most of the current front page at any given time has aggregated TikTok videos.
It is just a very tough business.
That depends on which theory about capitalism and its purpose you subscribe to - in your (and my) case social-democrat style capitalism (which was the dominant theory prior to the collapse of the USSR/GDR/Yugoslavia block) generally assumes a responsibility of the corporations towards society at large: paying fair and livable wages to employees (so that they can buy the products), paying proper taxes so that society can fund what's needed to give the corporation a chance at being successful (i.e. education of new workers, road and rail transportation, a fair court system), not laying off people for pure number games and invest a part of the profit to improve the corporation (invest into new machinery, R&D, or training the staff). Stock markets primarily serve as a way for corporations to raise money for investments.
Modern-day "neoliberal" capitalism however is a different beast. Basically, making money is a goal all on its own, with no rules and limitations on how to make it. As a result, we got "investment banks" "creating" insane amounts of money from thin air (and growing so large they threaten the financial stability of entire countries), everyone is constantly looking on how to squeeze those below him out of money on all levels, and if you got money you're free to do with it whatever way you please, including burning it or using it to snuff out a competitor.
I think the problems we're seeing today is that the government is just not doing its job (or more charitably, not moving fast enough to keep up) in regulating the industries _before_ the damage is done. And before the entrenched interests of the resulting megabillionaires can just pay the govt to look away for as long as they can milk this cow.
Probably Reddit thought they were just buying a mailing list and a development team. So the cost should be compared to Reddit marketing's acquisition costs and Reddit HR hiring costs.
Maybe money had to be moved under whatever pretense.
Reddit, you are replaceable. The moment you turn off old.reddit, I'm gone. I'd definitely admit I am addicted to reddit in it's current form but new reddit and the app are just too insufferable I'll happily give it all up and find somewhere else.