this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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"Don't be evil"...
... for now
I don't get it. They were rich beyond most people's wildest dreams. Why did they jump aboard the enshitification bandwagon?
They want to be rich beyond EVERYONE'S wildest dreams.
Why else?
Money is power, and people with money like to habe power.
If someone else is pulling in more money, you're going to find yourself with less power.
These were a couple of PhD geeks who hit it big, it's certainly not inevitable that intelligent people get absorbed with money, see the creator of VLC for example. It's just sad that these guys could have been rich AND kept the internet 'pure' and research focused. But instead commerce has crept in and taken a shit on what was once a clean simple brilliant search service.
What happened with VLC? This is the first time I am hearing it.
It's widely celebrated that Jean Baptiste Kempf, who could have easily sold VLC for tens of millions, declined to do so (or more accurately lead the steering group that jointly decided) keeping the enormously popular video player free and open source
https://old.reddit.com/r/VLC/comments/x0azkz/this_is_jeanbaptiste_kempf_the_creator_of_vlc/
Oh my, I was thinking that there has been a recent development and they sold out or something.
I had some interactions with him in VLC forum and he was still active there answering questions personally.
I hope they continue the good work.
Public trading... it's capitalism. By law you have to try and extort every penny.
Now that I think about it I'm not sure why they had to accept investor money at all. I wonder if it would have turned out differently if they had remained 100% privately owned?
Because growth... Without the R&D money, Microsoft or Yahoo, or someone else would have figured out how to do what they do faster/better, waited until google was a forgotten name and then enshittified.
When you make a lot of money, the number you see in your account starts to become part of your identity because it differentiates you between you and the people you see every day. The same way if I had blue curly hair, that would become a defining factor of where I “differ” from the general public. The numbers in one’s account becomes an obsession-point.
People get obsessed with the number and how much bigger they can make it. It’s like hoarding. No amount will ever be enough. And once you’re able to buy anything, the actual value of that money becomes meaningless. So even more drive to bring the number up because that’s the only novelty you are getting.
That and power.
"Tres Comas is for winners." (A wonderful line delivery by the huge asshole venture fund bro in Silicon Valley, that illustrates your point)
More money