william ⁂ maggosThe profit imperative means monopoly and then fucking us ever harder is inevitable. I'm all about a bit more socialism but ultimately we need a cultural embrace of sustainable market practices that support families and communities. Just big enough to do the job for your customers and the people who work there. Obviously no billionaires.
When you're trying to help a few people make millions more instead of lots of other people get the basics of a good life, you're in the wrong business.
but we're all in the "small digital business ecosystem" support business, right?
We need to work towards an economy of thriving small businesses with jobs that make people happy. For those who think the term #MAGA has/had a positive connotation, they don't think about racism/sexism. It was the idealized 1950s vision, of busy small town and suburban main streets, with people smiling and saying hello while they worked. Things felt affordable. The future was bright. The billionaire and concern about the stock market didn't exist.
https://prospect.org/api/content/dc2c3645-3bdb-5439-ad1c-8a257a46eb20/
I worry people are chasing profit instead of the public interest and this will favor AT over AP and we're going to regret that. I don't see how a truly competitive landscape is compatible with the VC business model of secrecy and predatory pricing. I thought the future we all wanted was new ideas implemented by lots of small, sustainable businesses. No crazy hype cycles but instead a slower sense of community, finally doing things well.
A real decentralized social media network just won't support the kind of profit that VC funding requires. There will be too much competition for that.
But it would enable a lot of small, independent and sustainable tech and media businesses doing interesting things that people feel happy about working for. And by replacing advertising with trusted recommendations, it could make possible a huge transformation in how we experience the market in society generally.
My goal is #CraftBeerCapitalism. Lots of small businesses, nobody is desperately poor or ridiculously wealthy. Lots of choices, not a big divide between owners and workers, no big outside money involved, sustainable. Buying feels good and personal. It's the kind of American economy that Jefferson envisioned. I get wanting to avoid lots of taxes or excessive regulations for most people, but to get what we want might require those on billionaires etc. And ending any dreams of generational wealth.