Finally, all you HN people are coming around to my critique of capitalism and venture capital. It leads to this almost by design, and much more… also leads to the polarization of our society: https://rational.app
I think the model demonstrate how the ’enshittification’ process is an inevitability with any social media that is run on a venture capital model.
Yes, it is called “extracting rents” in economics, and it is why, say, Uber drivers pay 50% of their salary to a company with 1 worker per 1 million people. It’s the shareholders. You see, to build Uber requires a few million dollars, but the “dream” is sold to entrepreneurs that they can become billionaires. VCs discover the startup and “reduce friction” with money-losing economics until it goes IPO. Then the whole thing is dumped on the public, and everyone who bought at X dollars a share wants the price to go up, and that means extracting rents from all the sides of the market.
There is a far better model of funding projects without this failure mode of shareholders, namely utility tokens, where the community owns the network. I know, I know… “web3 sux” and all that. Well, it doesn’t have to be Web3. Check this: https://qbix.com/Twitternomics.pdf
If you’re interested in joining us in building an open source alternative to all this venture-funded stuff, email me (details in bio).
I think the model demonstrate how the ’enshittification’ process is an inevitability with any social media that is run on a venture capital model.
Yes, it is called “extracting rents” in economics, and it is why, say, Uber drivers pay 50% of their salary to a company with 1 worker per 1 million people. It’s the shareholders. You see, to build Uber requires a few million dollars, but the “dream” is sold to entrepreneurs that they can become billionaires. VCs discover the startup and “reduce friction” with money-losing economics until it goes IPO. Then the whole thing is dumped on the public, and everyone who bought at X dollars a share wants the price to go up, and that means extracting rents from all the sides of the market.
There is a far better model of funding projects without this failure mode of shareholders, namely utility tokens, where the community owns the network. I know, I know… “web3 sux” and all that. Well, it doesn’t have to be Web3. Check this: https://qbix.com/Twitternomics.pdf
If you’re interested in joining us in building an open source alternative to all this venture-funded stuff, email me (details in bio).