When do you guys think they (companies/rich people/shareholders(?)) will realize that growth for the sake of growth is not viable and there will be a point of stagnation? Like… What are they gonna do, keep raising prices until nobody can b uy anything anymore?
I’ve never had Prime though. The reason my life is boring and empty, is (I think) because I avoid participating in things I don’t wholeheartedly approve of.
Viewing media, is an insidiously passive form of participation, so I do intently watch plenty of TV\movies (recently figured out it’s about 6-8 things a week).
The rest of my life is just household chores, bicycling, & traveling when I get the chance. Doing Things makes me feel like Ged.
So real; I have just years of old '90s SciFi etched into my brain. SciFi novels, too, but it might be nice if some percentage were nonfiction? I dunno, honestly at this point I’m just glad when I see media with a plot that I don’t immediately foresee the denouement of.
Weirdly, I watch less TV now than when I had more monthly bills to work off.
I was even doing pretty well about steering clear of social-marketing sites, until SMBC-comics added a comments section directly below the first of four stops on my (semi-)daily funny pages.
There is no cheaper subscription. The current prime sub gets adds added. Ad-free will cost more then the current ad-free subscription. “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
I’d say we crossed the Rubicon on this front decades ago, when in-person, at the theater, movies started showing actual ads and not just trailers before the movie you just paid for (and it was at the same price, of course).
I remember the first time I experienced this in a theater. My GF was like “…the hell?” and people were fucking booing the ads. But it didn’t matter enough - the ads are still here.
All these services turning into shit, are the services without a viable business model to begin with. What I find interesting is that it is obviously possible to become leading in a field, just by burning investors money.
It wouldn’t matter if they were drowning in money, if you told them they could have a few pennies more from each customer, they’ll do it. It’s how greed works.
I know, I was there. But I’m talking about when it was used by the larger general public, which was in the 90’s. Before that, it was people dialing up on modems to BBS’.
Partly, this is because “the free market will solve it” is just a neoliberal lie. Sometimes, there’s simply no other choice as corporations race each other to the bottom.
So this streaming service might have gotten shitty, espensive or unethical, but you can move to another right? Oh no, looks like they’re shitty and unethical too, just slightly differently.
Then in six months time, they’ve each absorbed one another’s shitty, greedy practises anyway, ensuring consumers are fully exploited with nowhere else to go.
But the true power of neoliberalism lies in its giant book of premade excuses, so neoliberals (or neoliberals in disguise) will of course read from the next page:
“Oh that’s just because there isn’t enough competition. We just need to deregulate heavily and allow companies to do whatever the streaming equivalent of dumping toxic by-products in the river is!”
But of course, that won’t ever come true either. The companies that already exist will grow more profitable polluting the river and new entries into the market will be either stamped out, bought and stripped for parts or enshittified by the same greed over time.
Following the flowchart taught at exclusive, expensive schools the world over, the next excuse is to blame the consumers.
“Oh if people really cared, they’d simply stop buying things entirely. But they don’t, because these companies continue to bring in record profits. So secretly, consumers actually love their chocolate being picked by child slaves”.
While they do fight back with boycotts, public outcry and (in this case) things like password sharing and piracy, it’s nothing companies can’t crush if it looks like it might actually dent their profits.
At some point, consumers need to pick their misery and the choices are bleak but obvious.
They can accept the minor misery of advertising, even as they pay a subscription, just like the corporation knew they would.
They can escalate their own misery further by boycotting the entire platform or industry.
But the moral high ground doesn’t make spending your few hours of personal time each day staring at the wall suddenly as entertaining as whatever content you’re no longer watching.
Also, the company doesn’t care. That was part of their calculations and they’re still making even more money.
Or finally, they could maximise their misery and actually do something, like busting out the guillotines or becoming a politician that opposes neoliberalism yet is somehow allowed power.
So anyway, people are tired. The fight never ends and some people have fought it for 50 years already. Encourage them to take the third option by all means, but don’t shame them for taking the first option.
And the thing is, the product everyone’s got their butts in a bunch over is garbage television. Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, Maytag Plus, there’s nothing good on any of them.
Honestly don’t mean this as an insult, but you might want to consider being more concise, so that your point comes across better.
So anyway, people are tired. The fight never ends and some people have fought it for 50 years already. Encourage them to take the third option by all means, but don’t shame them for taking the first option.
I’m not purposely trying to shame people, but I’ll definitely get on their cases if they don’t push back and let this crap continue.
It’s called consumer advocacy, and it shouldn’t be shamed away and not done. Those who are causing the problems in society would benefit the most if this happened.
If we all work together, it’s been proven that it does turn things around.
They might already be miserable enough.
It’s not my fault they’re that way, it’s the fault of the people making society horrible so they can selfishly make more money for themselves, which must be fought against.
The ones making Society horrible definitely win when no one pushes back.
Honestly don’t mean this as an insult, but you might want to consider being more concise, so that your point comes across better.
I’m cool with ranting. I enjoy the act of writing, blogs are long dead and it’s important to articulate why so many things in the world are fucking shit.
If we all work together, it’s been proven that it does turn things around
When?
The ones making Society horrible definitely win when no one pushes back.
They also win when people do push back, because thats how the game has been rigged. The extent of the public’s power is making them win slightly less.
The only way to stop companies doing unethical things is strict regulations, ruthlessly enforced. The only times “consumer advocacy” ever works is when the government steps in, which is why the ultra wealthy go to so much effort to ensure they never do.
One good person in politics, with power, is worth a million people boycotting.
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