Child.

Ok

According to that, I should be 53.

That’s over a decade older than I am right now.

I would argue that capitalist monopolies are the problem.

There are examples where a “monopoly” has 100% of the market and they do a good job, usually in non-profit driven contexts. To provide an example: there’s only one organization in pretty much any given area, that handles extinguishing fires. Usually called the fire department, and it’s run by the local body of government in a monopoly context.

They still do a great job, but there’s no competition in fire fighting.

They’re not inherently profit driven.

Also, hats off to the firefighters out there, you guys are awesome. Anyways, back to my point.

There are good organizations that operate a monopoly in their service segment. They’re just typically owned and operated by a democratically elected government. Of the people, for the people, by the people.

Any monopoly that is profit driven, especially any that are capitalistic, will succumb to enshittification, 100% of the time, it’s just a matter of when it happens. The only time that it is possible to not have that happen, is in privately owned corporations, which are rare… But the leadership believes in improving the product more than profiteering. But on a long enough time line, that will also fail because inevitably someone will buy the company or inherit it, and they will want to maximize their profits over everything.

It will always happen when things are privately held, and especially if they’re publicly traded.

There’s a paradox I heard of that’s pretty relevant in this line of thought that is pretty transportable to most things. I heard it in the context of IT security.

It goes something like this: you buy security and after 2 or 3 years when you need to renew, nothing bad has happened, so it seems like you don’t need security. When in actual fact the extra security has been the reason there haven’t been any incidents.

So it’s almost impossible to prove that buying the security is helping without extensive analytics.

In many cases those analytics are either very difficult or impossible to get.

To demonstrate the transportable nature of this concept, let’s transpose it to vaccines.

If everyone is vaccinated, then nobody gets sick from those diseases, making it seem like the diseases are not a threat anymore, which means that vaccines are no longer useful.

Meanwhile, in all actual fact, the only reason why polio is so rare is because there is a safe and effective vaccine for it that everyone has taken (replace polio with whatever disease you want that has an effective vaccine).

It’s a paradox of: how do we prove this is working, without discontinuing it and possibly being eaten by rats/leopards/whatever.

If there’s only monopolies in the market then is their product the best on the market, or is everyone using it because there’s no alternatives?

Leaning that monopoly argument against capitalism, it’s almost certainly not the best product. When you have a captive audience, those that need your service and don’t have an alternative, there’s no incentive to innovate, or invest in improving the product at all. Do innovation stagnates so that corporations can maximize shareholder value; because the focus of a corporation isn’t to innovate, or improve what they do, their focus is always on extracting the most value for the least cost.

Therefore, monopolies will almost certainly lead to a sub-optimal product. The people that suffer for this are the users of that product. In the case of something like Google search, that’s basically everyone.

There’s a more modern term for this phenomenon: enshittification. Actively making a product worse specifically for the purposes of creating profits for shareholders.

Late stage capitalism is fun, isn’t it?

Self improvement is a good thing. Good luck.

I’m rooting for you.

I’m guessing very closeted gay.

So this is what a puppet looks like when you pull your hand out… Very interesting.

Man, y’all are wrong. People on both platforms be stupid as hell. Myself included.

What was I talkin’ about?

This is exactly what I was trying to say. Someone single making $200k might think, well, I’m not struggling at all, maybe I’m on the rich side?.. No, they wouldn’t be rich there either.

$200k/yr is nothing compared to the fat cats on top.

Even double that, you’re still much much closer to begging for quarters in the go station than deciding what yacht to buy next…

The amount of money the rich have extorted from the rest of us is unfathomable.

🛩️🛩️

Wow, that’s a dick move before the pregnant wife.

Most of that stuff can be picked up for $20 or less, often much less.

Good luck finding a $20 turkey, nevermind a ham, nor cooking it.

You’re completely justified by being annoyed. I’d be fucking pissed.

Middle class is gone. You’re either extremely rich, or you’re down in the dirt with us poors.

If you’re not sure which camp you’re in, welcome to the fold.

Oddly specific.

I hope you’re living your best life just to spite her.

🛩️

Aah. Seems like Batgirl can survive without labeling every little thing.

Is the toilet paper over the tub?

We need the rest!

For science!

How dare!

(/s in case anyone wasn’t sure)

Most of the gig work stuff everywhere will earn less than minimum wage in most areas (where minimum wage is reasonable at least). The only benefit is that there’s basically no skill required, just get a thing (person/food/whatever) and take it somewhere, and you can basically work whatever hours you want; you’re and independent contractor for all intents and purposes.

So if a person has the ability to pick things up, carry them short distances and put them down, plus the ability to transport yourself from place to place, usually via a car, and having a driver’s license, then you can do most of the modern gig work. Whether transporting people or food/whatever… Knowing English isn’t even a requirement even if you’re working in a predominantly English speaking country.

It’s essentially perfect for anyone who doesn’t have the skills or knowledge to do much of anything yet. Not to disparage people that work the job, but everyone should already have these skills with the possible exception of having a driver’s license. Even a “McJob” or similar will require a basic conversational English (or other native language) understanding.

Don’t get me wrong, knowing the language helps, but it’s not a requirement. Translations are pretty good these days, so you can get by without really knowing anything of the language, as long as you can translate stuff to whatever language you speak, you’re all set.

In this way, the “jobs” tend to attract people of a certain type, immigrants are particularly prone to being taken in by it and immigrants have the least agency in the society they live in… At least until they become full citizens of the country they find themselves in.

It’s both unsurprising and sad that it’s happening, but there’s pretty much nothing that most people can do about it. If you boycott the services then those that would need that income will go without. So, is it better to get screwed, but still get something, or not get screwed, and get nothing?