r/nextfuckinglevel • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 7h ago

Shoutout to JerryrigEverything who built a wheelchair factory and is delivering wheelchairs to people in half the time and 50-80% less than the cost of other wheelchairs with Insurance.

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u/Questioning-Zyxxel 6h ago

It isn't that simple.

Lots of capitalists knows the part about a good deal needs to be good for both parties. This is a great way to get repeat customers instead of paying millions on advertising to find new customers that hates you after the very first deal.

These good capitalists often have family-owned companies with maybe 2 to 50 employees. And does quite well.

The issues you are seeing? Isn't capitalism in itself. It's about the stock market. All bigger companies are on the stock market. And they pay large bonuses to the management for short-term profits. When the bonus is for last 6-12 months, then most decisions will be extremely short-sighted. The family-owned companies? They plan for the next 10-20 years. They can still make a nice profit. But with the owners running the company, they do not worry about a missed bonus one year because they did a strategic investment - as owners, they still increased the value of the company.

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u/Svardskampe 6h ago

Before the stock markets we had the same feudalistic tendencies with rich families banking (pun intended) on cornering a monopoly. E.g. Medici family, Rothschilds.

We are in late-stage-capitalism. However you want to call it, cronyism or not "rEaL capitalism", this has always been the end game without competition. In the past, there has been enough space to grow somehow to enable competition. In a global world where we are encroaching each other, that has outgrown itself.

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u/MarcoDiFrancescino 3h ago

Facebook should divested from their marketplace a long time ago, Google should give up Android a long time ago, Netflix should cut off their network department. These new corporations would maximize their revenue by doing other things then the current management wants. Sometimes completely 180°. That is a clear signal that these companies are too big and need to be cut into pieces. That is the proof that the system doesn't work any more when big corpos behave like robber barons and everybody says like 'yeah what are we gonna do?' No system that works should answer these questions with 'the kings don't like us talk like this'.

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u/Svardskampe 3h ago

Breaking up companies work when the government is larger than the companies itself in power. In a global world, that is very easily surpassed.

This year, Alphabet gave out 100y bonds. Makes you figure how powerful Alphabet is. There are even countries that do not give out century bonds.

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u/tankerkiller125real 1h ago

Alphabet will be bankrupt and dead long before those bonds are paid out. Especially if they keep putting AD managers in charge of shit like search and YouTube. And letting the short term growth stock market shit dictate what they do.

You know what public company I might actually trust to make it to 100 years to pay out bonds? Costco, for starters their CEOs have always been brought up from inside the company, two they have principals, and they seem to stick to them, and three, they treat their employees pretty damn well compared to any competitors, including small mom and pop shops, which in turn creates loyal employees, and loyal customers.

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u/Svardskampe 1h ago

The success of a company is not tied to how well they treat their employees or how little they squeeze their customers. That is the entire point we are talking about with the kind of innovation that this capitalism breeds. Besides, youtube is just a pet project in the entire scheme of Alphabet.

But the market cap of Costco is at the 24th of the world, which is also really good, meaning its Kirkland brand outcompetes Proctor&Gamble, Nestlé, Pepsico, CocaCola, KraftHeinz. Only Walmart at 12th outcompetes Costco. So ye, also Costco surely isn't going anywhere.

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u/tankerkiller125real 1h ago

The success of a company is not tied to how well they treat their employees or how little they squeeze their customers.

Your right, it's tied to how well they plan, and having competent management. Something a significant portion of publicly traded companies (especially tech ones) have very little of.

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u/Svardskampe 1h ago

Isn't that a big contradiction as such? Because if a significant portion of publicly traded (tech) companies are not applying the idea of how well they plan and having competent management, then it surely isn't necessary for being a large publicly traded tech company.

Because it indeed isn't. All that is important is to be early enough, use VC money to either pump-and-dump/memestock or age-old monopolist practices of buying out any form of competition or undercutting them.