341–350 of 794 posts
This is just the reality of hardware costs now. RAM and Disk are scarce, prices have skyrocketed. I wonder how much leverage the hyperscalers like AWS/GCP/Azure have on their own supply chain to keep costs level in their clouds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't shift productivity by 10X and expect the rest of the supply/demand equilibrium to stay the same, with you working 10% of the time and sipping drinks on the beach while retaining the same job opportunities and expected salaries. There will be increased competition for job openings, reductions in real wages, or increased expectations of productivity. Probably some combination of all three.
It would be one thing if those increases in productivity were improving my QOL as a consumer of produced goods, through cost reductions or increases in quality, but I'm not seeing any of that. All that seems to be happening is that these productivity gains roll up as profits for the owner class. What's the point of all that, to me?
The moat of the owner class is lower because now information is everywhere and it's less possible to hide behind trade secrets and implementation effort.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess the argument would go that your income is significantly higher in the sense that the quantity and complexity of stuff that you can afford now is vastly greater than 100 years ago (e.g. washing machines, cars, clothes, computers). I’m not that saying it’s making anyone happier, mind you
It's all a matter of perspective. 100 years ago, the middle class' purchasing power is far bigger. Compared to 50 years ago, the middle class is getting poorer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't shift productivity by 10X and expect the rest of the supply/demand equilibrium to stay the same, with you working 10% of the time and sipping drinks on the beach while retaining the same job opportunities and expected salaries. There will be increased competition for job openings, reductions in real wages, or increased expectations of productivity. Probably some combination of all three.
No, but you could cut everybody to 30 hour workweeks and hire more people. Once it becomes the norm even for a small section of the economy it will spread. People are more productive in an absolute sense working fewer hours anyway. It just takes a union, an ambitious company, or a state to force that 30 hour workweek to show some success with better talent attraction and retention and better corporate results to star…
We are already productive enough to have a shorter work week and more leisure, anyone saying no has specific incentives to not support it (either via financial gain from the capital accumulation funnel or work bound to their identity).
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=4+day+week
(we get there eventually with structural demographics, it’ll just take longer)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It seems they have shifted by reducing the setup fees, and increasing the monthly costs. Monthly costs have gone up as well. Payroll has seen significant increases in Germany, construction has exploded far beyond inflation and, most importantly, electricity prices are still ridiculous due to merit-order and the refusal of splitting up Germany into multiple power pricing regions.
I remember the price increase that Hetzner did during 2022 because of the invasion in Ukraine. The said they will adjust the prices down when the electricity price reduced. Guess what? I am paying as a consumer about the same price as before 2022. Did Hetzner change their price down? Remember, the industrial price also dropped (and they also build out a large solar plant). No ... Ok, inflation? But those price increa…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't shift productivity by 10X and expect the rest of the supply/demand equilibrium to stay the same, with you working 10% of the time and sipping drinks on the beach while retaining the same job opportunities and expected salaries. There will be increased competition for job openings, reductions in real wages, or increased expectations of productivity. Probably some combination of all three.
No, but you could cut everybody to 30 hour workweeks and hire more people. Once it becomes the norm even for a small section of the economy it will spread. People are more productive in an absolute sense working fewer hours anyway. It just takes a union, an ambitious company, or a state to force that 30 hour workweek to show some success with better talent attraction and retention and better corporate results to star…
Eventually a new startup will replace your large inefficient employer with people working 10% of their time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess the argument would go that your income is significantly higher in the sense that the quantity and complexity of stuff that you can afford now is vastly greater than 100 years ago (e.g. washing machines, cars, clothes, computers). I’m not that saying it’s making anyone happier, mind you
This is likely mostly nullified by the consumerism hellscape that's being forced on us i.e. stuff lasts less time and we have to buy more often. Still a win but not as big as many are selling it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be one thing if those increases in productivity were improving my QOL as a consumer of produced goods, through cost reductions or increases in quality, but I'm not seeing any of that. All that seems to be happening is that these productivity gains roll up as profits for the owner class. What's the point of all that, to me?
It's easier to enter the owner class. It's easier for you to do a startup where you're not the expert in everything. It's easier for you to rely less on buying things when you can make them yourself. The moat of the owner class is lower because now information is everywhere and it's less possible to hide behind trade secrets and implementation effort.
Based on what? The macroeconomics don't work out that way. IF productivity goes up, but consumption does not, that means that it's harder to enter the owner class, because fewer productive enterprises (owned by non-working people) are supplying a larger share of customer demand.
This may make a difference on the margins for people in the software bubble. But for the other 8 billion people on the planet, they aren't all going to become owners in your brave new world, unless consumer demand goes to the moon to soak up all that productivity. It's not doing that. Prices aren't dropping. Quality isn't increasing.
If you think I'm wrong - is there a cross-economy explosion of small one-person businesses that I'm somehow not seeing? Are gigacorps across the board all losing market share? Because on the macro scale I see nothing but further consolidation.