> Maybe in the quarter, but not long term. It's a sustainable strategy if you've monopolized the market though...
It's also a sustainable strategy if the market has become so distorted that it's difficult for consumers to distinguish the good products from the bad. This is a pervasive problem these days. It may still be the case that a good pair of boots will last you 10 years, but how can you tell which pair is the good one? There are 10,000 brands, all of them have 4.7 star ratings because of bots, most of them have a picture that looks nothing like what you'll receive, and if they wear out in two years you'll have no recourse because the brand was just a facade over a "ghost workshop" that's now producing the same crap under another name. Trying to vote with your dollars is like pushing on a rope.
> When in reality, if you have a lot of "rockstar programmers" they should be able to mostly manage themselves.
I'm not so sure about this. There are many people who are good at doing things but not at organizing that activity in a coherent way (especially across a team). Also when the people doing the "real work" are also managing, they often have a tendency to give the managing short shrift because they'd rather do the "real work".
I agree we could do with a lot fewer managers than we currently have, but I think we do need some. (And this isn't just about software, it's about companies and organizations in general.) But I think we would be better off with more democratized company structures where the managers' power ultimately rests on the consent of the workers, so that when you have these clashes that currently result in "half the staff resigned in protest" they would instead result in "the CEO was fired due to lack of support from the staff".