Hollywood has always been a dirty and money-focused business, but it seems like the latest crop of execs are hellbent on entirely divorcing the creative enterprise from its human elements. Now studios are just exotic financial instruments that seek to turn "content" into stock prices.
IMHO, it's happening because we the humans optimize for proxy metrics which once were good as a proxy to the real thing but with the computer age they turned into shallow goals that end up destroying the real thing as the optimisation became too robust. Removing the human element from the machinery creates a fatigue on the remaining parts and the consumers. All jobs have become horrible, even if the productivity increases the optimisations end up destroying the workforce and this started eating into the society because no one is happy with their job and life. Seamen no longer can see the world through their sailing career because the stays at the ports are too short, a person can't have a simple job and a simple life because the simple job is optimised into exhaustion.
Pretty much. I'm sure Hollywood execs have always wanted to make as much money as they could, but they also (formerly) didn't want to be known as guys who only made terrible movies. Prestige, vanity, relationships, reputation...unanalyzable human factors are really important for the production of human-centric products like art and entertainment.
"They are just doing what is legally required of them and maximizing shareholder value!!".
People throw that out in there as if it's some inherent law of nature that can't be questioned. No- it's an intentionally created human construct by the rich & powerful to completely excuse them of any actions.
I can't recall any STNG episode where they solve some tech issue by doing the same thing but after a restart or two.
Didn't computers at the time of writing have the state problem solved by reboots? Like, reloading the program was essentially the same thing or something?
Well no, because there are literally an entire industry (luxury goods) where the main selling point is quality, and I don't see any sign that's going to disappear anytime soon.
Quality doesn't prevent the search of profit maximization. Hell, luxury goods aren't even about quality. The price/quality ratio on your Vuitton Bag or your Ferrari is down in the gutter. You're buying a social status, not quality.