i think the line generally comes specifically at “publicly traded company” that’s when everything other than “line go up” is thrown out. publicly traded companies are inherently bad for everyone but those who invest in them.
privately held can be bad, but they aren’t inherently so. it’s possible for a decent person/idealogue to have a decent product that people want to buy at a fair price. they’re just very easily beat out by bigger brands most of the time because they aren’t ruthless like the big ones.
There’s a legal obligation to extract the most value for your shareholders. This doesn’t apply in sole proprietorships or partnerships with a more centralized ownership, where there’s the realistic potential to have a conversation with one of the others (or internally) and say things like “let’s do y, because doing x would be fucked, even if it made me more money.”
In a publicly traded company, you can literally be sued by your shareholders for not putting profits first. This puts a background pressure that slants the odds in favor of enshitification. And whole industries are based on utilizing slightly uneven odds, so that has a real impact.
As you said - without being publicly traded, people can still be evil, but they aren’t nearly as likely.
i think the line generally comes specifically at “publicly traded company” that’s when everything other than “line go up” is thrown out. publicly traded companies are inherently bad for everyone but those who invest in them.
Privately held are bad too
privately held can be bad, but they aren’t inherently so. it’s possible for a decent person/idealogue to have a decent product that people want to buy at a fair price. they’re just very easily beat out by bigger brands most of the time because they aren’t ruthless like the big ones.
Nailed it.
There’s a legal obligation to extract the most value for your shareholders. This doesn’t apply in sole proprietorships or partnerships with a more centralized ownership, where there’s the realistic potential to have a conversation with one of the others (or internally) and say things like “let’s do y, because doing x would be fucked, even if it made me more money.”
In a publicly traded company, you can literally be sued by your shareholders for not putting profits first. This puts a background pressure that slants the odds in favor of enshitification. And whole industries are based on utilizing slightly uneven odds, so that has a real impact.
As you said - without being publicly traded, people can still be evil, but they aren’t nearly as likely.
You do have privately held companies that are owned/run by people who aren’t complete shitbags until the ownership changes & it all go’s to hell.