Also when scaling tech/platforms this is a big factor in how many people can actually pay.
Every scaled up platforms then gets trapped into collecting/selling personal data and flooding the field with Ads (and obviously in these ad auctions the 10% can outbid the majority so Ad prices keep rising).
"They bring in a rookie, throw money at him, buy the car, the house, after a couple of years, and your kids are in private schools, you're used to the good life, they tell you the truth"
Big salaries thrown at young people are bait. They don't need wild animals, but circus animals that are obedient, dependent and consistently perform tricks without too much thinking about why. Over time this involves such animals to loose all sense of self. Naturally this won't work on everyone and causes all kinds issues for both sides.
Actually its more a question of what others can learn from them, than the other way around because of these constraints.
The first time I was shown a case study of Amul (cooperative model of food production), it was a really eye opening moment, cause they had reached massive scale, profitable, invested in quality/innovation, really super creative (on the marketing side without any great budget) and most importantly Sustainable.
Like me if you have studied Dominoes, KFC and McDonalds this is not supposed to be possible. It shows how constraints in the local environment lead to innovation and totally different models that work.
Anyone getting thrown into the deep end of the Indian market, equipped with Western models are quickly confronted by assumptions that don't hold, and then they come up with stuff we don't see in the west.
Just look at their Dabbawalas (decentralized supply-chains/logistics), UPI (disintermediating Mastercard and Visa), IPL (no one thought cricket could compete when literally less than 10 countries playing the sport) etc
Western companies built their scalable models by optimizing for capital-heavy, consumption-driven economiess, but that doesn’t mean those models are the only viable ones. India (and other low-consumption economies) often find more sustainable ways to solve the same problems because there’s no safety net of endless VC funding, mass credit, or impulse spending to prop things up. Most Western companies operate in winner-takes-all mode (Amazon crushes small retailers, Uber kills taxis). But Indian models like UPI, Amul, Kirana networks show models of growth in a more cooperative manner.
In the Attention Economy, that social media platforms create, he knows how to capture Attention. The question is not Elon but about why we tolerate these platforms that prop up people like Elon or what the alternatives are.
Michael Goldharber pointed out at the dawn of the Internet => info explodes but Attention does not + ppl have a limited capacity to pay attention but unlimited capacity to receive attention.
The truth is Everyone needs a bit of Attention (it is a source of self esteem), that's why sites like HN work because people feel they are seen or heard even if its one upvote.
But then there are Elon and Trump types who are born with a need to be loved and respected by everyone. Plant them in the social media environment, where attention capture is rewarded, and is the main source of profit for the platforms, and we get the abnormal fruits we sow.
Lot of people have asked that question ever since Amazon (Platform Economy[0]) emerged. But the answer is not simple.
This is why experiments like ONDC[1] (being pushed by the Indian Govt) are interesting. They want an alternative path between producer and consumer with out a middleman (Platform). Similar to how email works based on open protocols. Or UPI which has reduced dependence on Mastercard/Visa.
Sociologist buddy told me few years back (during the first Trump term) they had survey data showing the anger is not economy related. When its jobs and inequality related people tend to move left more than right. More likely it was GFC/Iraq-Afg/Snowden-Assange/social media generated dysfunction/metoo/blm etc etc getting seen as some kind of attack on American identity, the kind of stuff that pushes people right.
But either way Govt is not magic. It has to react to a very complex uncontrollable ever changing reality. There will be oscillations between periods of calm and chaos.
Good news is we are already hitting upper limits of how many people we can reach via apps/smartphone/internet.
Limits that in the past 2 decades (of scaling) the people who built these Platforms didn't have to think about. Now they do. And they are coming under serious pressure because they have built out more Supply than there is Demand.
For example, we got the explosive growth of Netflix. Everyone sees that and piles into streaming. When growth slows in one country they immediately move into another and they keep growing until they run out of countries to expand into. So Netflix has been in India (a country advertised as having zillions of consumers) for nearly 10 years now but they haven't found more than 25 million paying subscribers. Learning takes time. And everyone is learning there are limits to growth based purely on the online model.
Bernie is on the march. Join him. People will get sick of Trump much faster this time around. We just need a decent alternative to rise up and that will happen only through organizing and action - https://bobertea.sg/news/bernie-sanders-heads-to-heartland-t...
Since then the avg ad price, they have reported has risen for 12 quarters in a row, past 6 quarters its jumped 15-30%. The MO is to prey on small businesses and people who want attention, world wide, who don't know anything about advertising/marketing. Everything they know comes from what Google and Meta tell them.
Indian IT firms made about $100-120 Billion in revenue last year. That's just handling Corporate Americas IT/BPM ops. Add the rest of the worlds IT stuff and it doubles. Why will this happen if it benefits no one? This story is 30 years old now. And its not the first time the Visa system is being gamed.
If you assume Corporate America saves 40-50% in salaries (usually the conservative diff in avg sal level of Indian vs American Engineer) through this route, then someone has to pay that diff to make this stop. Otherwise the incentives have not changed and there is no "easy fix".
Cause if you start talking about birth certificates on social media in America you can become President. Its similar to why do spammer spam? Cuz tech has brought cost to spam down to 0. Any income is profit.
Every scaled up platforms then gets trapped into collecting/selling personal data and flooding the field with Ads (and obviously in these ad auctions the 10% can outbid the majority so Ad prices keep rising).