Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we’re already paying $20/mo and they’re operating at a loss I'm quite confident they're not operating at a loss on those subscriptions.
They are running at a massive loss overall - feels pretty safe to assume that they wouldn't be if their cheapest subscription tier was breaking even
of course there are a lot valuable use cases. irrelevant in the context, though.
the productivity boosts in the creative industries will additionally lower the standards and split the public even further, ensuring that if you want quality, you have to fuck over as many people as possible, so that you can afford quality ( and an ad-free life, of course. if you want a peaceful peripheral, pay up. it's extortion 404, 101 - 303 already successfully implemented on social media, TV and the radio ).
they don't lose. they make TONS OF FAKE MONEY everywhere in the, again, cough,
"ecosystem".
It's important to understand the Amazon part. The amount of damaging mechanisms that platform anchored in workers, jobbers, business people and consumers is brutal.
All those mechanisms converge in more, easy money and a quicker deterioration of local environments, leading to worse health and more business opportunities that aim at mitigating damage; almost entirely in vain, of course, because the worst is accelerating much quicker; it's easier money.
At the same time peoples psychology is primed for bad business practices, literally making people dumber and lowering their standards to make them easier targets. Don't look at the bottom to see this, look at the upper middle class and above.
It's a massive net loss for civilization and humanity. A brutal net negative impact overall.