Ed Zitron, from Where's Your Ed At writes:
I believe that both public and private markets have become decoupled from the concept of "good business," ruled instead by a hunger for the eternal growth of revenue and market share, regardless of whether they're making a good product or treating humans as disposable in the process.
We've seen this in Big Tech already with AGI and AI being big buzzwords that have these behemoths hemorraging cash. The products are a buggy mess and the results aren't what folks claim them to be.
But these companies are raking in billions of dollars regardless of the money they're continuing to lose but that's capitalism, baby.
In fact, I'd argue that investors — not just those backing pre-IPO businesses, but also those investing in public companies — have become entirely disconnected from production, to the point that an alarming amount of modern business is done to please investors over customers, turning product strategy into a form of symbolic marketing. Our economy isn't one that produces things to be used, but things that increase usage — and the result is the public decay of creativity and innovation.
Not only this but a decay in trust. What can we trust these companies to actually do? They say a lot and do very little. Meanwhile AI generated images are making it harder to determine what is actually real and what is not.
And, most recently, Vice Media announced it would no longer publish written content to any of its flagship publications — including Vice.com, Vice’s regional sites, and its acclaimed tech vertical, Motherboard.
Say what you want about Vice and it's umbrella companies, this is bad for the media industry as a whole.
And its aggressive push into branded content — like its 2014 deal with Absolut vodka — and partnership with the Saudi government undermined both its punk rock credibility and its editorial independence.
And that's the crux of it; pivoting to video, listicles, AI slop, all pushed upon the poor writers that these publications at the behest of VC bros for clicks and profits as trust that the media is going to be quality and engaging is burning like the runway of the media startup companies that tried to dethrone traditional media.