I know it's no longer a novel observation how the entire internet is enshittified now but it's still shocking that so many of the things we depend on had such a sudden and marked decline in quality.

Google results are mostly ads. Facebook is 90% ads, 10% domestic terrorists. Twitter is... well, not Twitter and it's only good for Nazis to yell at each other in the hopes they make .0004 cents per tweet. Instagram is ads. TikTok is misinformation central. YouTube serves forty-seven ads per second of videos watched.

Every news article is behind a paywall, and some of them are just AI-text garbled from someone else's much better article, also behind a paywall.

AI art has made it impossible to find images you want. It's also exploded the use and potential use of misinformation. Your data is now being fed to generative AIs to make cheap slop that only makes information harder to find and source.

Everyone wants you using their app instead of a web browser so that you aren't allowed to block the 3,487 ads per page that have to load.

Amazon is full of fake or low-quality dupes of the things you actually want to buy. Netflix and other streaming services are raising prices, cutting available shows, and erasing the existence of shows in order to avoid paying writers. Art hosting sites such as DeviantArt allow your work to be scraped for NFTs and generative AI without your consent or any form of compensation. Spotify has demonetized over 80% of their tracks and pays the rest astoudingly low, worse than the other streaming services which also underpay.

Everything is a subscription service which means not only are you paying for the same product in perpetuity but you never technically own any tool you use and your right to use it can be revoked at any time. Everything has to be a "smart" product so when the business inevitably folds and/or the servers shut down, your product no longer works. Hope it's not something you need!

Every company no longer accepts phone calls but routes you through a series of automated messages until finally dumping you off to an overworked and underpaid person who has no power to help you. Speaking of phones, you can't use them for calls. There are so many robocallers and scams that no one in their right mind picks up the phone anymore. Texts are going the same way. No one wants to dig through 100 scam messages to find the one from the person they actually want to talk to.

It's all just the inevitable end result of capitalism. It doesn't have to be this way. But there needs to be regulation, and fast, or the "Dead Internet Theory" will no longer be a fringe theory.

This is the reason I switched back to buying and actually using CDs and DVDs or straight up pirate and stopped buying from Amazon and instead use other websites if I have to buy stuff online. Tho it's still incredible hard to find good quality online.

All the things that used to be great about the internet have now just got capitalised and I hate it so much.

I recently discovered that you can't watch a video on YouTube if don't have an account anymore and you also can't add things to your queue anymore on the YouTube app without YT premium.

I swear to god, I'm in my 20s but I feel like a 70yo who just hates on technology and how things used to be better in my old days... But like... They were better back then.

Same goes with clothes. Most of the clothes that are sold new are just shit. Regardless how expensive they are. I have shirts from the 2000s that are thick, sturdy and in great condition even tho they are second hand. And then I have shirts that I bought new in the last 5 years and it's just a flimsy, thin and cheap mess that will just be fucked after a year of wearing (at best). I only buy second hand now but like, shit is so expensive second hand and even there you have to be careful of the quality because some people sell Shein stuff, that they have maybe worn twice.

The only thing that still hasn't had been touched too much by corporate greed is this hellsite. But like. If Tumblr is going down, I will just throw my router out of the window and never access the internet again until I die (which will be short after, since even basic stuff like buying train tickets and stuff is completely online in some regions)

I just bought my first new telescope in a decade (!), and not only is it super high quality but I also got it for a great price

how? because I've remained on this small astro business' mailing list from when I bought a few similarly awesome eyepieces at incredibly low prices 11 years ago

could anyone else find this one-person business anymore by sifting it from the dross of 50,000 garbage dropshippers who pay Google etc for their site to show up first? probably not, unless you ask someone like me in person for a recommendation and look up the name

if the post-enshittification future after all the Big (and encrappified) brands and sellers and services collapse looks like little guys making and selling stuff they're passionate about again, I eagerly await the fall of capitalism

(I mean, I eagerly look forward to the fall of capitalism anyhow, but you get the idea)

Yup

[ ID: screenshot of a post by Reid Southen: “Rarely have I seen AI described so succinctly” in reply to Church of Jeff's post:

“The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth." /ID ]

Climate change-driven heatwaves threaten millions

Extreme record-breaking heat leads to severe crises across the world.

Already in 2024, from Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria in the West; to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, China, and the Philippines in the East; large regions of Asia are experiencing temperatures well above 40°C (104°F) for days on end.

The heatwave has been particularly difficult for people living in refugee camps and informal housing, as well as for unhoused people and outdoor workers.

Using the Heat Index Calculator, at that temperature and a relative humidity of 50%, residents see a heat index of 55°C (131°F) - a temperature level humans cannot long survive:

In February, the southern coastal zone of West Africa also experienced abnormal early-season heat. A combination of high temperatures and humid air resulted in average heat index values of about 50°C (122°F) - the danger level, associated with a high risk of heat cramps and heat exhaustion.

Locally, temperatures entered the extreme danger level associated with high risk of heat stroke, with values up to 60°C (140°F):

Even here at Ad Astra's HQ in Kansas, last summer we saw several days with high temperatures of 102°F (39°C) at 57% humidity, resulting in a heat index of 133°F (56°C):

Of course, the major difference in survivability in Kansas versus some of the places suffering extreme heat right now is that air-conditioning abounds here. Those who live somewhere that faces extreme heat but can escape it indoors are a lot more likely to survive, but a person who lives somewhere without such life-saving gear faces not just discomfort, but heat stroke and even death.

This includes unhoused and poor people here in the USA, who often do not have access to indoor refuge from the heat.

About 15% of US residents live below the poverty line. Many low-wage earners work outside in construction or landscaping, exposed to the ravages of heat. Many do not own an air conditioner, and those who do might need to budget their body's recovery from heat against cost to purchase and run cooling equipment. Because heat stress is cumulative, when they go to work the next day, they’re more likely to suffer from heat illness.

Bad as that is, for those living on the street, heatwaves are merciless killers. Around the country, heat contributes to some 1,500 deaths annually, and advocates estimate about half of those people are homeless. In general, unhoused people are 200 times more likely to die from heat-related causes than sheltered individuals.

For example, in 2022, a record 425 people died from heat in the greater Phoenix metro area. Of the 320 deaths for which the victim’s living situation is known, more than half (178) were homeless. In 2023, Texans experienced the hottest summer since 2011, with an average temperature of 85.3°F (30°C) degrees between June and the end of August. Some cities in Texas experienced more than 40 days of 100°F (38°C) or higher weather. This extreme heat led to 334 heat-related deaths, the highest number in Texas history and twice as many as in 2011.

The Pacific Northwest of Canada and the USA suffered an extreme heat event in June, 2021, during which 619 people died. Many locations broke all-time temperature records by more than 5°C, with a new record-high temperature of 49.6°C (121°F). This is a region ill-suited to such weather, and despite having relatively high wealth compared to much of the world, many homes and businesses there do not have air-conditioning due to a history of much lower temperatures.

Heatwaves are arguably the deadliest type of extreme weather event because of their wide impact. While heatwave death tolls are often underreported, hundreds of deaths from the February heatwave were reported in the affected countries, including Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and the Philippines.

Extreme heat also has a powerful impact on agriculture, causing crop damage and reduced yields. It also impacts education, with holidays having to be extended and schools closing, affecting millions of students - in Delhi, India, schools shut early this week for summer when temperatures soared to 47°C (117°F) at dangerous humidity levels:

At 70°C (157°F !), humans simply cannot function and face imminent death, especially when humidity is high. This is the notion of "heat index," a derivative of "wet-bulb temperature."

Though now mostly calculated using heat and humidity readings, wet-bulb temperature was originally measured by putting a wet cloth over a thermometer and exposing it to the air.

This allowed it to measure how quickly the water evaporated off the cloth, representing sweat evaporating off skin.

The theorized human survival limit has long been 35°C (95°F) wet-bulb temperature, based on 35°C dry heat at 100% humidity - or 46°C (115°F) at 50% humidity. To test this limit, researchers at Pennsylvania State University measured the core temperatures of young, healthy people inside a heat chamber.

They found that participants reached their "critical environmental limit" - when their body could not stop the core temperature from continuing to rise – at 30.6°C wet bulb temperature, well below what was previously theorized. That web-bulb temperature parallels a 47°C (117°F) heat index.

​The team estimates that it takes between 5-7 hours before such conditions reach "really, really dangerous core temperatures."

On March 5, 2024, Hong Kong saw temperatures of 27°C (80°F) with 100% humidity, which results in a heat index of 32.2°C (90°F) - seemingly not so bad until considering it's higher than the critical wet-bulb temperature. Also, if you watch the video, imagine the long-term effects of water accumulating in residences, such as dangerous mold.

We are witnessing the effects of climate change right now, all around the world, and rising temperatures are just the most-obvious (what we used to call "global warming"). Many, many other side-effects of climate change are beginning to plague us or headed our way soon, and will affect us all.

Unfortunately, those most affected - and those being hit the hardest right now - are people most vulnerable to heatwaves. With climate crises increasing in both intensity and frequency, and poverty at dangerous levels, we face a rapidly rising, worldwide crisis.

We must recognize the climate crisis as an international emergency and treat it as such. So much time, creative energy, resources, and life is wasted in war and the pursuit of profit or power - consider how much good could come from re-allocating those resources to ensuring a future for Earthlings, instead.

(Expect to see a "Science into Fiction" workshop on climate change coming soon - SF writers have a particular responsibility to address such important topics.)

Writers: What does a future look like where these temperatures become increasingly common?

What are the second- and third-level consequences of dramatic climate change in a part of the world that already exists at the edge of survivability?

Not just obvious effects, but second-level ones like schools closing ever earlier, and third-level ones that examine how reduced schooling affects a culture and individuals.

Can public schooling for all exist in populous or poor areas when doing so requires the expense of powerful air conditioning in class buildings and free air-conditioned transportation? Which require a reliable power grid that can stand up to high temperatures while supplying higher capacity with reduced greenhouse emissions? How might such cities look when their residents receive reduced or no public schooling?

More consequences include climate refugees, which will become an increasing challenge not only for the individuals seeking refuge but also for their homeland and the places where they emigrate to. And look how countries are already violently rejecting immigration even on the basis of refugee status.

And so on, an ever-lengthening chain of cause and effect.

The future will be different, likely very different, and in unexpected ways. If your writing is set in the future, to be believable and relevant (and perform its subversive duty to convey your themes) it must take all this into account.

Warning the world of such consequences and offering alternatives is important work. This is why our motto is, "Saving the world through science fiction," because if speculative fiction writers don't warn about dangers and offer hope based on likely, real, or ignored scenarios, who will?

Only through raising awareness of problems can we seek ways to solve them. Climate change is already causing real-world crises like heatwaves in places like India, China, the Philippines, the Arabian peninsula, equatorial Africa, and pretty much everywhere that isn't the far north or south, so dealing with it is not just theoretical but an urgent and primary matter we must solve now, before it gets even worse.

SF writers have a responsibility to draw attention to suffering, to provide visions that inspire those who can help solve crises, and motivate everyone else to get active and help stop The Torment Nexus.

How many people have to die before we overthrow the robber barons? I want a number. I'd accept a range with a margin for error.

the thing about capitalism is that at a certain point a product reaches its maximum audience and cant really be improved (at least not while remaining profitable), but capitalism requires a product provide infinite growth, and at that point the only way to increase profits is to raise prices, cut corners, and in the case of services start adding advertisements. this is just how the system works.

The actual economic term for this parasitic behavior is "Rent Seeking", as in "charging you rent for things that didn't used to cost money just because we can."

also see:

Enshittification (alternately, crapification and platform decay) is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.

SF and tech writer Cory Doctorow coined the neologism in November 2022, and the American Dialect Society selected it as the 2023 Word of the Year.

...and of course:

Rather, end-stage capitalism, where corporations have taken all they can from customers and reduced costs to the absolute minimum. Such a system requires economic collapse or restructuring worldwide economies to reset into something functional.

...and all this arises from:

Muse's The 2nd Law is a concept album about a deteriorating planet that its inhabitants can no longer live on. Major lyrical themes of the album include societal collapse, totalitarianism, and the second law of thermodynamics, which the album's title and title song reference.

This is feudalism. This is literally feudalism. You own nothing and pay a tithe to your landlords.

TECHNOFEUDALISM

for @guardian books

tweet by stealthygeek - edited a little:

Holy shit dude

This sounds like… really important? What the FUCK Disney??

They are just straight up not paying loyalties! “Disney’s argument is that they have purchased the rights but not the obligations of the contract.”

This is seriously dangerous to creators

Read the letter from Alan Dean Foster:

SIGNAL.

BOOST.

Because you know if Disney gets away with not paying creators, everyone else will want to see if they can get away with it.

THIS IS INSANE. AND YES IF THEY WIN, THEN ALL THE CORPORATIONS WILL DO IT.

So I looked this up since it’s been a few years.

Alan Dean Foster and some other writers got paid in a settlement with Disney in May of 2021.

BUT there are still many writers who have not been paid since their work transferred to Disney. And worse, it looks as though marvel contracts for comic writers are predatory, up to and including making royalty payments totally optional.

There hasn’t been an update since mid-2022, so I don’t know if any further progress has been made.

reminder that digital libraries aren’t owned, also why pirating digital content is a necessity

This is how digital purchases are a scam for the consumer. If they don't let you have a copy of the media you can access on your own devices, then you're just paying to "rent" the digital content until it disappears from the access point you could watch it from.

Which is why I've been buying physical media and putting it all on a media server so I can stream it from my PC where ever I am.

Especially with no commercials or a subscription fee to watch it as if it's cable.

I want to see a major resurgence in people buying DVDs, CDs, and Blu-Rays - if we can own media cheaper than we can rent it, and we stop giving money to corporations that con us like this, they'll have to reform or fail. but either way at least we'll be able to keep the things we've bought

Definitely nothing bad could ever happen when you inject technology inside your body...

If you (like me) ignored Instagram's email abt AI at first bc you were fucking annoyed, let this be your reminder that you can send a request that your data may not be used for their AI in less than a minute. Click the link in the email and do it. You'll get the confirmation in just a minute.

on top of this, for people in the UK and Europe, if you can't do it in the way above:

it will take you to a form you need to fill out, the words I used for the required reason were as follows;

Copyright - Europe's strict GDPR privacy laws mean Meta is obliged to honor all requests, regardless of reason.

reblog this if you can. protect your privacy, it matters.

I've been going through every page related to Privacy Policy and can't find anything, so I ran a search and discovered this gem:

turns out that In the USA, you can only opt out by setting your account to private

for Meta users in the USA, there isn’t a way to stop Meta AI from learning from your public social media posts, as there are no privacy laws specific to this

“While we don’t currently have an opt-out feature, we’ve built in-platform tools that allow people to delete their personal information from chats with Meta A.I. across our apps,” Meta said in a statement

those using Meta apps within the European Union, Britain, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland were notified that they could opt out, according to Meta, but others are out of luck

Paying for it doesn't make it a market

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SATURDAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Anyone who says "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product" has been suckered in by Big Tech, whose cargo-cult version of markets and the discipline they impose on companies.

Here's the way that story goes: companies that fear losing your business will treat you better, because treating you worse will cost them money. Since ad-supported media gets paid by advertisers, they are fine with abusing you to make advertisers happy, because the advertiser is the customer, and you are the product.

This represents a profound misunderstanding of how even capitalism's champions describe its workings. The purported virtue of capitalism is that it transforms the capitalist's greed into something of broad public value, by appealing to the capitalist's fear. A successful capitalist isn't merely someone figures out how to please their customers – they're also someone who figures out how to please their suppliers.

That's why tech platforms were – until recently – very good to (some of) their workforce. Technical labor was scarce and so platforms built whimsical "campuses" for tech workers, with amenities ranging from stock options to gourmet cafeterias to egg-freezing services for those workers planning to stay at their desks through their fertile years. Those workers weren't the "customer" – but they were treated better than any advertiser or user.

But when it came to easily replaced labor – testers, cleaning crew, the staff in those fancy cafeterias – the situation was much worse. Those workers were hired through cut-out shell companies, denied benefits, even made to enter via separate entrances on shifts that were scheduled to minimize the chance that they would ever interact with one of the highly paid tech workers at the firm.

Likewise, advertisers may be the tech companies' "customers" but that doesn't mean the platforms treat them well. Advertisers get ripped off just like the rest of us. The platforms gouge them on price, lie to them about advertising reach, and collude with one another to fix prices and defraud advertisers:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

Now, it's true that the advertisers used to get a good deal from the platforms, and that it came at the expense of the users. Facebook lured in users by falsely promising never to spy on them. Then, once the users were locked in, Facebook flipped a switch, started spying on users from asshole to appetite, and then offered rock-bottom-priced, fine-grained, highly reliable ad-targeting to advertisers:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

But once those advertisers were locked in, Facebook turned on them, too. Of course they did. The point of monopoly power isn't just getting too big to fail and too big to jail – it's getting too big to care:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

End of the line for corporate sovereignty

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me next weekend (Mar 30/31) in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON, then in Boston with Randall "XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then Providence (Apr 12), and beyond!

Back in the 1950s, a new, democratically elected Iranian government nationalized foreign oil interests. The UK and the US then backed a coup, deposing the progressive government with one more hospitable to foreign corporations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization_of_the_Iranian_oil_industry

This nasty piece of geopolitical skullduggery led to the mother-of-all-blowbacks: the Anglo-American puppet regime was toppled by the Ayatollah and his cronies, who have led Iran ever since.

For the US and the UK, the lesson was clear: they needed a less kinetic way to ensure that sovereign countries around the world steered clear of policies that undermined the profits of their oil companies and other commercial giants. Thus, the "investor-state dispute settlement" (ISDS) was born.

The modern ISDS was perfected in the 1990s with the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). The ECT was meant to foam the runway for western corporations seeking to take over ex-Soviet energy facilities, by making those new post-Glasnost governments promise to never pass laws that would undermine foreign companies' profits.

But as Nick Dearden writes for Jacobin, the western companies that pushed the east into the ECT failed to anticipate that ISDSes have their own form of blowback:

https://jacobin.com/2024/03/energy-charter-treaty-climate-change/

When the 2000s rolled around and countries like the Netherlands and Denmark started to pass rules to limit fossil fuels and promote renewables, German coal companies sued the shit out of these governments and forced them to either back off on their democratically negotiated policies, or to pay gigantic settlements to German corporations.

ISDS settlements are truly grotesque: they're not just a matter of buying out existing investments made by foreign companies and refunding them money spent on them. ISDS tribunals routinely order governments to pay foreign corporations all the profits they might have made from those investments.

For example, the UK company Rockhopper went after Italy for limiting offshore drilling in response to mass protests, and took $350m out of the Italian government. Now, Rockhopper only spent $50m on Adriatic oil exploration – the other $300m was to compensate Rockhopper for the profits it might have made if it actually got to pump oil off the Italian coast.

Governments, both left and right, grew steadily more outraged that ISDSes tied the hands of democratically elected lawmakers and subordinated their national sovereignty to corporate sovereignty. By 2023, nine EU countries were ready to pull out of the ECT.

But the ECT had another trick up its sleeve: a 20-year "sunset" clause that bound countries to go on enforcing the ECT's provisions – including ISDS rulings – for two decades after pulling out of the treaty. This prompted European governments to hit on the strategy of a simultaneous, mass withdrawal from the ECT, which would prevent companies registered in any of the ex-ECT countries from suing under the ECT.

It will not surprise you to learn that the UK did not join this pan-European coalition to wriggle out of the ECT. On the one hand, there's the Tories' commitment to markets above all else (as the Trashfuture podcast often points out, the UK government is the only neoliberal state so committed to austerity that it's actually dismantling its own police force). On the other hand, there's Rishi Sunak's planet-immolating promise to "max out North Sea oil."

But as the rest of the world transitions to renewables, different blocs in the UK – from unions to Tory MPs – are realizing that the country's membership in ECT and its fossil fuel commitment is going to make it a world leader in an increasingly irrelevant boondoggle – and so now the UK is also planning to pull out of the ECT.

As Dearden writes, the oil-loving, market-worshipping UK's departure from the ECT means that the whole idea of ISDSes is in danger. After all, some of the world's poorest countries are also fed up to the eyeballs with ISDSes and threatening to leave treaties that impose them.

corporate welfare on an international scale

[Image description: a bluesky post by @bushidosquirrel.bsky.social "Death and Gravity" which says "Uber: we can't make money if we have to follow the law

Google: we can't make money if we're not allowed to be a monopoly

Nestle: we can't make money without using slave labor

OpenAl: we can't make money if we can't steal

media: should shoplifters be executed?"]

also it should be, "we can't logarithmically increase profits every quarter forever if..."

vice news

ironically i am working right now so i can’t do a full post on this like i would really prefer to do… but these are the most cartoonishly evil people that you could possibly imagine, even in a society as flawed as the one we’ve built for ourselves. these are bedrock groups devoted to protecting the american worker and consumer. massive huge giant waving red flags 🚩

i am telling you this is going to snowball into something nobody wants to see. the only upside is that this might actually lead to a worker uprising. this is fucking ghoulish.

Vote Blue No Matter Who.

Only a constitutional amendment countering Citizens United (which is the SCOTUS ruling that decided that corporations are people) is going to save us from this

And a Republican majority is going to hand human rights away to Amazon.

Because there will be no workers uprising. Not on a revolutionary scale. Saying that is accelerationist shit.

So you know, if you actually care about the future?

You need to show up in November.

There’s time. We have candidates who hate this shit. Have hope.

Amazon wants you hopeless. Hopeless people don’t vote. Hopeless people don’t join unions. Hopeless people don’t call their representatives.

Remember! You are never easier to control than when you are hopeless.

They are taking political action. You do the same.

Remember! You are never easier to control than when you’re hopeless.

Do not give the corporate monsters what they want. It’s part of their master plan.

Do you really want to feed into that by rolling over and just accepting the only thing you can do is wait?

Let's remember why folks like Amazon are so angry at the NLRB right now: Because the Biden administration has made it more aggressive than any president since before Reagan.

Is it a coincidence that so many labor actions have been successful lately? Nope. They're getting quiet support, rather than sabotage, from the feds.

Biden is doing the actual work of government. It's not as flashy as wrecking government, and it's slower, but he gets it done.

I am always blown away by the mental disconnect between rich people and the rest of us.

I work for a doctor. He pulls in $70,000-$90,000 a month before tax. After tax, he's still $200,000+ a year.

I earn $52,000 a year.

Yet his wife will still talk to me and say "oh, we're not rich." She drives a Porsche. She wears Carla Zampatti. They live in a new townhouse that cost well over a million.

So, when she gives me recommendations on things to buy and I tell her I can barely afford Kmart, she seems genuinely perplexed.

They are NOT bad people. I've worked for them for 12 years now. They are good people with good hearts. But they no longer connect with reality on level and it's absolutely mindboggling.

And I think a large part of this is that rich people compare themselves to other rich people, not to the regular people.

He doesn't earn as much as a surgeon. He doesn't own a mansion or a helicopter (both of which I know a couple of surgeons own).

In comparison, they aren't as rich.

They were once poor, 25 years ago when he was starting to become a doctor. But that memory is skewed now. Or perhaps they always aimed for the Porsche and the month long holidays in Scotland so the journey meant something else.

But, holy shit, when she shows me something on sale that's still out of my price range, I feel that gap. And I don't envy her. I don't want a Porsche.

I just want to actually afford Kmart without saving up for it.

And since there seems to be some belief that I earn a huge amount, that is AUD.

It's $34,000USD, rounded up.

And yet, horrifyingly, she's kind of right.

Like yeah, the surgeon is unfathomably wealthy compared to someone who struggles to meet their basic needs... but he's fundamentally still working class. He gets his money from his labor, not by virtue of merely owning something.

Does the surgeon make more than he "deserves"? Maybe. Even if he's a plastic surgeon, I can still squint and kind of see how it makes sense for him to get paid that much. However, I do know that people who get their wealth by merely owning things absolutely don't deserve it.

And like, the important thing is that it's a difference in kind... but the difference in scale is absurd too. If her husband worked since Egyptians first started writing on papyrus, and didn't spend any money, he'd still have less than what Jeff Bezos makes in a week. The pay ratio between Bezos and the surgeon is 60,000x greater than the pay ratio between the surgeon and you... and he literally doesn't do anything besides own companies. Bezos literally does less work than you.

I don't like this fact at all.

We should really not go along with the corporate lingo on these shifts to automation and AI. Always remember this: They don't want to pay people to do the work.

Companies aren't replacing cashiers with self-scan machines for the customer's convenience. They don't want to pay people to do the work.

Companies aren't using AI to produce a better product. The product produced by AI is notably inferior - they just don't want to pay people to do the work.

Corporate America is not hurting for money. It's not that they can't afford employees -- profits are soaring! They just don't want to pay people to do the work.

The amount of waste inherent in corporations is staggering.

Most of it is invisible, untracked, unaccounted for. And no I am not talking about "time theft." I'm talking about some not-entirely-obvious wastes like

These non-value added activities cost time. Whenever someone does them, their time has to be compensated. So all this waste costs money. Lots of it. Millions a year for a midsize company.

And none of it is on the books. People don’t WANT to see it.

Because all of these wasteful behaviors come from so-called "common sense."

The majority of corporations larger than 20 or so people are like cars that get 6 miles to the gallon. But you never get to KNOW what the MPG rating of the car is. So managers and execs shrug, and say "well we gotta cut costs somewhere if we are gonna pay for gas to drive to see grandma this year, so I guess it's no food or hotels during our 4-day road trip."

My job (and that of my colleagues) is to help companies fix these issues. From about 2004--2020, more and more companies were starting to realize that this hidden waste, their "poor gas mileage" was their real problem. So they invested in getting better.

Always, the first challenge was helping them set up their business so that they could even SEE this waste (remember, it's all untracked and unaccounted for and invisible). Once they could see it, even then it was a challenge to get them to change their behavior. See above: "common sense."

These companies didn't engage us because they were on a self-improvement kick. They did it because it would help them cut out the waste and make better profits. They rarely believed this at first (see above: "common sense). But they knew that their competitors were trying to improve efficiency, so they should too.

It's 2024 and Automation, not efficiency or invisible-waste-reduction, is the New Magic Profit Button. Who needs efficiency when you have Automation? I'm watching my colleagues around the world struggle to stay relevant and find clients who want to reduce waste.

The amount of waste that is going to be baked-in to so many corporations is -- I suspect -- soon going to exceed pre-2004 levels. Automation makes things happen faster, with less oversight. Including non-value-added work.

*pant, pant, pant*

I'm so sorry to go all consultantblr on yall. Thank you for your patience if you've read this far.

But OP is right, and never forget it:

They don't want to pay people to do the work.

Also? So many of them are pissing money away in hidden waste every day.

Do NOT go along with the corporate lingo. Normalize holding corporations accountable. "Before you say you cannot pay your workers fairly, show us what have you done to find and improve the wasteful processes within your operating model."

hate hate hate hate