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Shartacus ,

Yep and we have a right to not use their shit services and start a new one while the investors get pissed

thawed_caveman ,

As discussed here:

Honestly they do it so consistently that i’m starting to wonder if they have a choice.

A common way to do things for tech startups is that they get venture capital funds, use them to run the business at a loss hoping to acquire market dominance, and then use market dominance to turn a profit. I think a lot of tech startups that we know are currently in phase 2, meaning they’ve thrown money out the window for years and are now trying to recoup their investments.

Also, Reddit wants to go public and Twitter already is. This is relevant because investors are animals, all they see is short-term profit, and they use their voting power to make the company behave that way.

There’s a common thread between both my theories: it’s shareholder capitalism. I say this as a lifelong shareholder myself, shareholders ruin everything.

erre ,
@erre@feddit.win avatar

If interest rates are high, I’m sure they’re hard up for capital. The free money they’ve grown to depend on is drying up and they need to make money themselves asap.

dustyData ,

Yup, tech bro culture is wasting someone’s else money to play with computers. No money, no game time for baby. Silicon Valley is in a panic because the infinite spout of money suddenly stopped, and there’s a line of pissed people asking for their money back. They promised the world, now it’s time to deliver and turns out they have nothing of value.

Aceticon ,

I was in the Tech game back in the late 1990s and in the Tech Startup game recently and this time around it’s not techies that are Startup Founders, it’s people from Sales, Marketing and Finance.

The whole “making something cool” ethos of Tech has been replaced by “Find a market niche that you can grow in until you have an exit strategy (IPO or sale to a larger company)” or in other words, make a company that looks like an infinite growth venture and sell it to some suckers for a ton of money.

As it so happens I was in Investment Banking in between those two periods in the Tech industry and immediatelly recognized the same spirit as in Investment Banking when I went into Startups in the late 2010.

At least the previous generation was driven by the “play with computers” drive. This one is all about borderline fraud (often outright fraud - just think Theranos or all the “coin” “tech startups”) in the pursuit of personal upside maximization.

dustyData ,

Tech bro is a derogatory term for a reason. It’s still just a bro. Generally a cis genedered heteronormative affluent white male. With all the worse parts of MBA culture. Certainly they’re sales, marketing and finance types. But they want to be tech adjacent to disrupt the market. They like to portray themselves as techies but are actually about get rich quick schemes. Their one and only interest on NFTs, crypto, AI and all tech in general is how can it enable them to exploit others into making them billionaires.

thawed_caveman ,

I heard the same about the movie industry: it used to be run by movie people, now it’s run by finance people. The greedy producers of old came from the industry and understood the business; today’s greedy producers don’t understand anything about movies, so if you’re pitching them a project, you need to speak their language: here’s a market niche, here’s similar projects that have been profitable, here’s the return on investment we can expect.

I wish i knew how true that is, but it does seem to explain a lot of what we see from Hollywood these days.

Aceticon ,

I was in the Tech game back in the late 1990s and in the Tech Startup game recently and this time around it’s not techies that are Startup Founders, it’s people from Sales, Marketing and Finance.

The whole “making something cool” ethos of Tech has been replaced by “Find a market niche that you can grow in until you have an exit strategy (IPO or sale to a larger company)” or in other words, make a company that looks like an infinite growth venture and sell it to some suckers for a ton of money.

As it so happens I was in Investment Banking in between those two periods in the Tech industry and immediatelly recognized the same spirit as in Investment Banking when I went into Startups in the late 2010.

At least the previous generation was driven by the “play with computers” drive. This one is all about borderline fraud (often outright fraud - just think Theranos or all the “coin” “tech startups”) in the pursuit of personal upside maximization.

andrewrgross ,

What I find interesting is that I’m starting to hear this same story (in different words) from very different sources.

Lefty bloggers are saying, *“The hype economy is over, and vaporware companies used to never delivering are suddenly gasping for air in an economy that requires them to actually provide value.” *And at the same time, mainstream financial podcasts are reporting that “Outlooks for 2023 anticipate a hostile market environment for disruptive innovators as they attempt to leverage their brands to monetize large user bases with low profitability. Meanwhile, the market is being buoyed by legacy firms with reliable cashflow from existing sales and services.”

It shocked me when I noticed how different people are seeing the same thing, and it seems overdue.

plum ,

Great point that shareholders ruin everything. I invest but I’ll avoid certain companies or industries that don’t align with my values, even if those stocks have the most potential profitability. But this seems to be a very uncommon habit in the investing world.

x7tYnC6c ,

While these changes will eventually happen, as all of these companies are meant to make a profit from the start. The reason they’re all happening now is because of the coming recession, or at least the believe that it will come.

RandallFlagg ,
@RandallFlagg@lemmy.world avatar

There’s a coming recession?

Obi ,
@Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

Maybe, maybe not. You like betting?

Gradually_Adjusting ,
@Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.ca avatar

It’s 2008 again. Bad bets taking advantage of dovish monetary policy that has now ended.

rainfern ,

I don’t think reddit started out as a for profit company. iirc it started as some dudes sharing links. I knew a site like that back in the day. Link aggregator and forum made by one dude because he liked the community.

cley_faye ,

It’s more like you now notice this because it have visible effects, but it’s been going on for years. Restricting content, abusive rules and stupid changes have been the norm, all toward a centrally controlled experience geared toward generating internal profits on the back of users and content creators.

It’s also why some prominent content creator started their own platforms, too.

It’s just that now it reaches “intolerable” level for most end-users.

balrog ,

Capitalism.

Capitalism is like cutting off your wings because you believe the reduced weight will make you fly higher.

Smoogs ,

It’s shocking how accurate at how the oblivious and infuriating it is.

PorradaVFR ,

I’ve worked in the tech sector for a LONG time and have met and worked with some of the most shockingly brilliant and insightful people in my life….and many that are far less so.

As with any population.

Bad decisions, lack of strategy or plain old monetization motivated by greed or a desire to cash out before the cash runs out are sadly commonplace. The method taken says everything about the quality (or lack thereof) of leadership.

Some real stinkers lately.

wildekek ,

Venture capital has shifted very quickly from companies HOSTING content to companies SCRAPING content (LLM’s). This means renting compute is now very expensive and moving into the hands of ‘AI’ companies. It’s like trying to fly a plane while monkeys are tearing the wings of.

TrueStoryBob ,

That plus interest rates are going up. For twenty years VC’s has near limitless cheap loans, now they’ve got to be marginally more careful than before and the companies which grew large but only ever broke even (if that) now need to pivot to profitability to justify all the debt they took on. Would not be surprised if Uber and Lyft start really hiking rates soon.

MargotRobbie ,
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

I think most taxi companies have adapted, so they are pretty competitive now.

Fizz ,

I don’t think it’s all of a sudden. They always do this but this time it’s all lined up.

afraid_of_zombies2 ,

You are the product and right now the product is falling in value. I have known a few people who raise exotic animals and they treated them as nicely as a parent treats their own child. Now compare this to people who raise chickens.

The easy money is drying up. Hence you, the product, are worth less money. I personally don’t really care all that much. The market was due for a correction well over a decade ago. The average person is worth about a dollar to Alphabet and when you think about how much you are getting the numbers never made sense. This dead weight mismatch has been skewing our entire economy. Engineers and project managers that would have gone into tangible items and paid for services instead were recruited to keep you on social media all day.

There are only a finite amount of techies and no one is going to care if slack integrated with Google maps if we are drowning in human sewage.

Etterra ,

YouTube can try lol. But they’ve never cared about users. They’re just all at about the same point where they have to stop pretending in order to feed that capitalism machine (or try to at least). It looks like hostility, but it’s just them finally being honest.

Strangian ,

It’s all about money

panda_paddle ,

I’m not sure YouTube ever wanted you using adblockers.

Flaky ,
@Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

They didn’t, but they’re going on the offensive way more so than before. People think it’s related to MV3 crippling a lot of ad blocker functionality.

morgan_423 ,
@morgan_423@lemmy.world avatar

Google needs to understand, that is not a choice that they have.

So much of the internet is covered by sites that don’t take the time the vet their advertisers and the ads that are being placed on their platform.

Advertisers who, in turn, advertise on legit sites spreading scams and malware wherever they go, and Google and YouTube are no exception to this. These companies really brought The Age of the AdBlocker on themselves, by not making sure that the ads they are allowing on their platforms are safe for users.

So now, me and about a bajillion other people are in a position where we don’t go out onto the internet anymore without protection. Ad blockers for everyone.

So, YouTube’s actual choice is this: do they want me to continue to visit their site and drive their traffic metrics?

Because that’s all they are getting from me, and if they find a way to disable all ad blockers, than they are clearly saying that they don’t want me and others like me to boost their visitor numbers. Simple as that.

fushuan ,

I’m against them doing what they are doing but you talk like you don’t have the choice to add YouTube as an exception to your adblocker of choice. Yeah having an adblocker is crucial but nothing is impeding you to do that and see the adds on YouTube.

morgan_423 ,
@morgan_423@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t think you understood what I was saying.

I try to take no ads, from anyone, because it’s a digital safety issue. YouTube included.

thereddevil ,

Then buy YouTube Premium and the ads go away.

YouTube is not a charity and needs to pay for servers hosting the content people view. That money comes from ads/YouTube Premium

cyanarchy ,

I’m going to quote @morgan_423 from elsewhere in this thread:

I’m not going to reward them for these misbehaviors toward their user base by buying their “Premium” service. Same for any other site that does this and offers a “Premium service” to fix the problem that they, themselves, created. There are ways to have safe ads, and fair user experience even with them in play.

Seiyus ,

That’s fair but while visitor metrics are important, there is also ad engagement that makes them a desirable platform for those advertisers. Your visits add nothing to their business. Not that I agree with their stance, but I understand it.

scarabic ,

You can also pay for YT premium and have no ads. Plus… what’s unsafe about YT ads? You’ll definitely get some fucked up ads on small websites that just plug in a stack of 3rd party ad networks but everything on YT is native first party ads they sold and implemented themselves. Viewing them is about as unsafe as viewing YT videos in the first place.

can ,

Yeah, I really enjoy the ads showing how I too can earn hundreds of dollars a day at home doing _____-

scarabic ,

Those ads are shit. All ads are shit. But unsafe means it’s installing Russian malware on your computer, etc. I don’t think much of that is happening via YT.

can ,

Unsafe to me includes the naive (and dumb) losing all their money to a scammer. But I see your point.

scarabic ,

I can definitely see your definition, too. But it departs a little from the ad blocker conversation. I don’t need an ad blocker so I’m not fooled by a pyramid scam. I do need one to keep malicious code away. The kind of person who falls for this sort of scam doesn’t know how to install an ad blocker, probably.

But then again, there’s the “I install the ad blocker on my mom’s computer to keep her from falling for scams” argument, which is definitely valid. Yeesh the last time I visited my elderly father he had all kinds of XXX push notifications popping up from calendar spam he’d fallen prey to. He was in a state of desperation, always afraid someone was going to see his phone do something embarrassing.

abaixodecao ,
@abaixodecao@lemmy.world avatar

Even the FBI says you should use an ad blocker.

SgtSilverLining ,
@SgtSilverLining@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I’ve been using the internet since the 90s. Originally I was very pro ad, since it meant that we wouldn’t end up with paying subscriptions for every site on top of internet utility bills. But around 2010 or so I got malware from an ad I didn’t even click on - all it had to do was load on the page. The site issued an open apology but it’s not like they were going to pay repair costs for everyone’s computers. After that I knew neither websites nor ad suppliers were vetting what they display to users. Companies only get more complacent as time goes on, and once the option was out there bad actors would only get more creative. I’ve used ad blockers ever since.

Anon819450514 ,

Because you can’t have an open api while serving legit user and bot. The bot will eat your future snack of exploiting the data they’re amassing. So you end up having some limitation to block the bots to some extend.

TechnoBabble ,

The only thing you can’t do with an open API is exploit every dollar of value that passes through your service.

The main difference between a Silicon Valley API and a FOSS API, is the SV API is trying to get tons of people rich as fuck by exploiting you. The FOSS API can live long and prosper by simply asking for donations every once in a while, or engaging in very light-handed monetization.

There are like a million little nuances to this whole issue, and the lack of nuance is what Silicon Valley relies on to convince people that they must pillage their users, but that’s the gist.

Anon819450514 ,

My post was being more ironic and sarcastic. You explain and nuanced it well in your post. I think people can’t read between the lines sometimes.

weew ,

A lot of the 2010’s tech was fueled by venture capitalists looking for the next big thing. They saw things that were extremely popular, like Facebook, Reddit, YouTube, etc, and figured “well we’ve got a ton of users, surely we can find a way to make money off of this.”

Some investors are starting to realize they aren’t actually making much money or costs are blowing up without revenue following. People are starting to back out of this bubble without clear goals towards profitability.

mignochrono ,

Yeah it’s mostly investment people that have a lot of money and are basically the ones pulling the strings. Because if they don’t like you then the value of your company goes down and poof you were deeply s***

MargotRobbie ,
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

It’s simple, despite what big tech companies are telling themselves, current algorithm for personalized online ads doesn’t actually work, because you can’t force people to be interested something just by shoving media in front of them.

Instead of realizing that people want genuine human engagement to tell them HOW your product can help solve their problems, we are at the phase where tech companies double down on their incorrect assumption and thinks to make people want things, they just need to shove more things people don’t want to see in front of them.

briongloid ,
@briongloid@aussie.zone avatar

Algo ads could be good, if they weren’t primarily advertising stuff to me after I already bought it.

I look up a specific type of product that isn’t consumable, buy it, then get ads for it for weeks.

MargotRobbie ,
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

How many mattresses or tires can one person need?

That’s the problem with personalized algorithms, because they don’t understand what people actually needs.

(What people actually need is tickets to “Barbie”)

briongloid ,
@briongloid@aussie.zone avatar

The advertising companies, Google & Facebook, absolutely do understand this and are happy to mistreat small companies.

The worst part of using Google Search without uBlock is that if I’m just trying to get to a specific website without typing out the full html address, I have to scroll passed the top result which is an advert for the website I already typed.

Google charges companies for customers they already had.

Neirin_D ,

It’s even worse than that. The ad is often a fake version of the website you are looking for. Ublock protects you from phishing and malware.

briongloid ,
@briongloid@aussie.zone avatar

Very often do I have to bypass the wrong links as well for competitor services I wasn’t looking for, because I explicitly wrote the service I had chosen.

s_s ,

It’s even worse than that, Facebook and Google have been selling “impressions” that are actually bots for decades at this point.

DocMcStuffin ,
@DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world avatar

Long ago I was searching for a new printer then the printer ads started following me to different places on the Internet. Places that should not have known I was searching for a printer. I decided I wasn’t going to have any of that and installed an ad blocker.

Not sure how effective that will be in future. Pretty sure ads as content written by AI is going to be the hot new thing. And by hot new thing I mean thing that can die in a fire.

merc ,

Surely the fact that you bought a toilet recently means that you’re now a toilet enthusiast and will happily click on ads to add to your toilet collection!

briongloid ,
@briongloid@aussie.zone avatar

We hear you like toilets

zenhocky13 ,

I’d say synchronous targeted ads work very well. I.e. showing me ads when I am searching for something explicitly on Google or Amazon. Asynchronous targeted ads - yeah, less so.

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