mccDec 21, 2022

Re: https://mastodon.social/@lrhodes@merveilles.town/109552108127349128

Another important warning from the pawoo acquisition: The purchaser, Mask Network, is a cryptotoken company that pushes the "web3" myth and openly runs NFT scams*. A lot of people comment that when Twitter started failing it was ActivityPub that wound up being the decentralized way forward, not blockchain tech, but blockchain scammers have a financial interest in making it look otherwise. (1/2)

* Explaining this comment to ward off lawsuits: all NFT sales are scams.

Show threadmccDec 21, 2022
In other words, blockchain/NFT scammers find marks by associating themselves with literally whatever sounds good— financial liberation, musicians, distributed networks, "green energy". Now that Mastodon is starting to culturally "look good", the blockchain/NFT scammers have an incentive to find ways to associate themselves with it and possibly even try to take credit for it after the fact. And though they have no useful technology, they *do* have VC money to spend on PR and acquisitions. (2/2)
Show threadMark Halvorson
@mcc but VC money is drying up. That’s why Twitter, Facebook, NFTs, and crypto are dying. It’s why Google is losing money. Inflation means that it now costs money to lend money, and tech companies are struggling make up the profit they need.
Dec 22, 2022 at 12:22amWeb
Show threadmccDec 22, 2022
@someMAHoo that makes sense… are there concrete signs (in terms of changes in VC behavior) that this is happening, or is it simply the expected economic result of inflation rising?
Show threadMark HalvorsonDec 22, 2022

@mcc I’m not going to pretend that it’s my hypothesis. It comes from Derek Thompson at The Atlantic. Basically, inflation ended the 12-year post-recession period of free borrowing, so, for the first time, these companies have to focus more on profits than growth.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/11/tech-industry-mass-layoffs-recession-twitter/672150/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Why Everything in Tech Seems to Be Collapsing at Once

The industry is having a midlife crisis.

The Atlantic
Show threadUrbanEdmDec 22, 2022

@someMAHoo @mcc Sooo...your thesis that VC money is drying up may be sound, but throwing in "google is losing money" suggests this is a desired state rather than anything factual.

Google made $46b in the first 9 months of 2022. If you have evidence this is wrong, please provide it to the SEC.

Show threadMark HalvorsonDec 22, 2022
@UrbanEdm @mcc many of these companies are still making money, but not the easy money they once were. Hence the ridiculous $8 Twitter Blue, ads on Netflix, and price hikes across the board. As for Google, they’re still profitable, but their profits decline 27% in Q3. Yes, it’s a profit, but it’s not the profit that investors expect or reward.
Show threadMark HalvorsonDec 22, 2022
@UrbanEdm @mcc I meant to include this article: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/google-profits-plummet-27-percent-in-q3-2022-earnings-report/
Google profits plummet 27 percent in Q3 2022 earnings report

Google shut down a bunch of projects this quarter, and now we see why.

Ars Technica
Show threadUrbanEdmDec 22, 2022

@someMAHoo @mcc Reduced profits are quite different from losing money, though. Google still has a 20% margin, which is pretty enviable. If you're saying that tech is becoming more like normal, mature industries, I think there's evidence for that.

But if you're trying to turn that into a story of collapse, at least outside of the scammy blockchain stuff, that's just not what's happening.

Show threadMark HalvorsonDec 22, 2022
@UrbanEdm @mcc I don’t have an edit button, so I can’t change what I wrote to “Google has declining profits.” You’ll just have to imagine that’s what I said.
I’m not theorizing some apocalyptic collapse. It’s not even my theory. But inflation has made VC money scarce and companies that have not had to make a steady profit for a generation are now feeling the pinch. Inflation explains that pretty well IMO.