a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by b_b
b_b  ·  3198 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Post-Capitalism Has Begun

    ...who decides what is on that list has all the power in the system.

Right, so you start bribing the decider with some of your allotted resources to get access to others, and OMG we have a black market. Who'd have thunk it?

I actually agree with him (to some extent) here:

    ...information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant. The system’s defence mechanism is to form monopolies – the giant tech companies – on a scale not seen in the past 200 years, yet they cannot last. By building business models and share valuations based on the capture and privatisation of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.

However, I totally disagree with his prognosis. I think it basically means that FB, Twitter and the like have vastly inflated share prices, and eventually they will have a reckoning. But then, what the fuck have FB, Twitter and Instagram ever made? Nothing, to put it bluntly. They are easily replaceable compared to say, GE or even Apple. It's a big leap to say that because some internet companies have a shitty, unsustainable business model, that we're seeing the end of capitalism.





wasoxygen  ·  3198 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    information is corroding the market’s ability to form prices correctly. That is because markets are based on scarcity while information is abundant

This is the point where I started skimming. It's obvious nonsense, unless you are talking about prices for information. The Information Age has indeed reduced the cost of getting data about, say, poverty rates, to a negligible level.

Prices are information. More information means better, more uniform pricing. Remember renting a car at the airport without a reservation, or walking into a hotel to ask the rack rate? Ever checked a price on Amazon while standing in a Best Buy?

    what the fuck have FB, Twitter and Instagram ever made?

Joy. They created joy. What did Shakespeare make? Bruce Lee? mk?