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Engineered Addictions

masonyarbrough.substack.com

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Re: Engineered Addictions

#441

Post by jmcqk6 »

Jensson wrote: post #400
bgnn wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We make fun of the state run businesses of old communist regimes, how wasteful they were, how mismanaged they were, how they produced stuff nobody wanted and so on. I'm increasingly getting a similar feeling for VC fueled tech. It's all smoke and mirrors of hype (was blockchain or web3.0 yesterday, AI and quantum today). There is so much wasted money, especially after quantitative easing and negative interest rates o…

The difference is that VC fueled startups is a very small part of the economy while communist regimes are the entire economy. Imagine if every company was as wasteful as VC fueled startups and life would be hell, imagine going to the new smart grocery store where prices changes by the minute and now you have surge pricing since many wanted to buy toilet paper this minute...

Most companies are wasteful. Perhaps not as wasteful as a startup, but still incredibly wasteful, and it scales non-linearly with size.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#442

Post by yesfitz »

account42 wrote: post #437
fn-mote wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents let them.

Individual parents don't have that much of a choice unless they want to turn their kids into social pariahs.

Can you provide any sources on that?

I've only been able to find articles that counter it[1][2][3][4], and nothing more rigorous than a Pew survey.

It feels right, and I recall feeling similarly about certain items/events as a teen, but teens aren't known for having the most measured interpretations of reality.

1: https://medium.com/@helmisantosa/teens-without-smartphones-h... 2: https://screenstrong.substack.com/p/can-you-raise-a-teen-tod... 3: https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/parenting/article/teenag... 4: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/smartphones-flip-phones-screen-...

Re: Engineered Addictions

#443

Post by lesuorac »

MangoToupe wrote: post #404
duped wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that executives have a duty to maximize shareholder value is a trope from business ethics class, not law. I say this because you used the phrase "fiduciary duty" which does not exist in this context.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co . This is not statute, but it remains legally binding in Delaware so long as the courts uphold it.

It's not legally required in the state of Delaware (or Michigan where Dodge v Ford occured) to _maximize_ shareholder value.

It's that if you're going to make a decision that affects 1/3 of the companies value you need to actually claim it's in the shareholders interest that you do so.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#444

Post by MangoToupe »

lesuorac wrote: post #443
MangoToupe wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co . This is not statute, but it remains legally binding in Delaware so long as the courts uphold it.

It's not legally required in the state of Delaware (or Michigan where Dodge v Ford occured) to _maximize_ shareholder value. It's that if you're going to make a decision that affects 1/3 of the companies value you need to actually claim it's in the shareholders interest that you do so.

I don't think maximization of shareholder value is really the interesting part, it's the mandate that they must be prioritized ahead of employees and customers.

> It's that if you're going to make a decision that affects 1/3 of the companies value you need to actually claim it's in the shareholders interest that you do so.

I'm not really sure where the 1/3rd ratio came from. Can you explain? To my layman's ear, "value" and "shareholder value" are the exact same thing.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#445

Post by MangoToupe »

account42 wrote: post #433
MangoToupe wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would love to see the tech industry return to concentrating on truly delivering good to the end-user. I How do you force an industry to ignore profit incentive? Seems a little pollyannish to hope for.

You force them to pay for the negative externalities they cause so that their profit incentives are not as misaligned with what is good for the rest of the world. This includes making companies pay for pollution but also for much more abstract damages like the reduced consumer choice from monopolies.

> You force them to pay for the negative externalities they cause

Surely Capital would just purchase more convenient terms from politicians.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#446

Post by chipsrafferty »

Maybe the solution is that these services shouldn't be free, and you should pay for your usages. Then a non-profit could run an Instagram / tiktok clone and there would be no incentive to make the app more addicting, addiction would be even self-regulated to an extent by the fact that watching 10 hours of video might cost $5

Re: Engineered Addictions

#447

Post by chipsrafferty »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #27
klik99 wrote: post #20

> Then it raised venture capital, hit scale, and needed to hit growth numbers and meet quarterly metric goals. The focus shifted from “authenticity” to “daily active users.” Having spent a few years in the VC world I have been increasingly convinced outside investment is the biggest reason why companies lose their morals. The legal obligation to represent shareholders erodes morality. When the people running these co…

To be clear, business operators have extremely, extremely broad latitude in how they interpret their fiduciary duty to shareholders. We actually need to combat this notion that somehow exclusive focus on short term returns is somehow legally, morally, or ethically required. It is actually antisocial and obviously destructive.

Even focusing on short term profit would be fine, if you want to blow up the business go ahead, if those profits were actually shared fairly with shareholders. Too often companies can just dilute their stock over and over, which fucks over individual investors and benefits the 51% owners, and investors don't really get a say, yes there's a vote but if 51% is owned by a few it's not a vote.

Individual investors are largely operating on trust.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#448

Post by jrowen »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #428
jrowen wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely wild to me. I honestly do most of my clothes shopping through Instagram/Facebook ads. I enjoy that targeted advertising shows me new products and companies that I'm interested in, often very niche stuff that I don't come across otherwise. I would so much rather see that than ads for life insurance, penis pills, ambulance chasers, or whatever other bullcrap goes to the lowest common denominator. The…

If I'm going to pay for something by watching ads, I much rather watch fewer, higher value, more targeted ads. Untargeted ads are less valuable (to me, the advertiser, and the ad publisher), so I would have to see a lot more of them to pay for the content I consume.

I'm really not big on advertising. I dislike ads as much as anyone, especially when they're obnoxious and intrusive.

But I feel like a lot of people, on here especially, have this "all advertising is the devil period lalalala" attitude, but it does have real value. People don't like that it's been taken to a psychologically manipulative science of big brands being shoved down your throat. But I have genuinely found the ad experience on FB/IG to be the best there ever was. I do legitimately find out about things that I end up buying and liking and people ask where I got it and laugh when I say "a Facebook ad."

Re: Engineered Addictions

#449

Post by citizenpaul »

theturtle32 wrote: post #403
energy123 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason is optimization for profit, combined with competition making it a survival necessity to do this. Early in a nascent industry, you focus on the core product. You bring scale and scope economies. You make the supply chain more efficient. You improve the logistics. More abundant basic food stuffs for everyone, and more profits for agriculture shareholders. A true win-win. Later on when the industry mature…

This is what always frustrates me: why do companies need to bother with "pathological late stage optimisations" at all, if not for perverse incentives in the fundamental economic and political structure of how companies operate? Why is reaching a growth plateau perceived as stagnation instead of success? Why must a company feel pressured to grow forever, without bound? What's wrong with building a business to sustain…

Cause some sociopath name Friedman wrote something that the ruling class/ generationally wealthy loved. That business should only serve the owner to the expense of literally everything else.

Since the rich and powerful get what they want. This race to the bottom mentality has saturated anything where a company accepts outside investment. This means any public company and any investment into the company outside of a bank loan. Which is basically every company nowdays since private equity company have bought stake in literally almost everything.

Re: Engineered Addictions

#450

Post by baxtr »

theturtle32 wrote: post #405
baxtr wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and there is a huge problem connected to that: If you don’t play this game you’ll lose. Look at Europe for example, they haven’t played the VC game properly and thus have no really significant tech player compared to the US / China. So what options are left? Play the game or be ruled by those that play it. I’d rather play even if moral erosion is required.

> I’d rather play even if moral erosion is required. Gross.

Yes. But what’s the alternative?
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