This was originally titled “I miss when computers were fun”. But in the course of writing it, I discovered that there is a reason computers became less fun, a dark thread woven through a number of events in recent history. Let me back up a bit.
I think what the author describes as the culture of Whatever is also a big reason everything kinda sucks now. It’s all run by MBAs who have no relation to the product and have no vision except “line goes up”. They have no incentive to care about the product they’re offering because they couldn’t care less about it.
I went to a conference for college newspaper editors at the University of Georgia in 2000. The goodie bag included a copy of a UGA professor’s book When MBAs Run the Newsroom. And prescient. Now they run everything and have no fucking clue what the business actually does.
Worse: they actively do not care. “I don’t know how to [insert business type here], but I know how to manage.” Like the former CEO of McDonald’s taking over (one of?) the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Who needs a PhD, MD, or knowledge of things like biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, etc., when you know how to uh… what was the goal again? Oh yes: “make number go up”.
They have no incentive to care about the product they’re offering because they couldn’t care less about it.
I think it’s kinda even worse: they’ll take a good product and actively make it worse, so it’s not mere indifference to it but active hatred towards the wants of the customers, in contrast to the desires of the Board.
Like why change a perfectly good logo? If it serves its purpose, then leave it alone?! But no, line must go up, and even if changing the logo makes it go down, then oh well…
The thing is it’s been like that forever. Good products made by small- to medium-sized businesses have always attracted buyouts where the new owner basically converts the good reputation of the original into money through cutting corners, laying off critical workers, and other strategies that slowly (or quickly) make the product worse. Eventually the formerly good product gets bad enough there’s space in the market for an entrepreneur to introduce a new good product, and the cycle repeats.
I think what’s different now is, since this has gone on unabated for 70+ years, economic inequality means the people with good ideas for products can’t afford to become entrepreneurs anymore. The market openings are there, but the people that made everything so bad now have all the money. So the cycle is broken not by good products staying good, but by bad products having no replacements.
I think what the author describes as the culture of Whatever is also a big reason everything kinda sucks now. It’s all run by MBAs who have no relation to the product and have no vision except “line goes up”. They have no incentive to care about the product they’re offering because they couldn’t care less about it.
I went to a conference for college newspaper editors at the University of Georgia in 2000. The goodie bag included a copy of a UGA professor’s book When MBAs Run the Newsroom. And prescient. Now they run everything and have no fucking clue what the business actually does.
Worse: they actively do not care. “I don’t know how to [insert business type here], but I know how to manage.” Like the former CEO of McDonald’s taking over (one of?) the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Who needs a PhD, MD, or knowledge of things like biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, etc., when you know how to uh… what was the goal again? Oh yes: “make number go up”.
I think it’s kinda even worse: they’ll take a good product and actively make it worse, so it’s not mere indifference to it but active hatred towards the wants of the customers, in contrast to the desires of the Board.
Like why change a perfectly good logo? If it serves its purpose, then leave it alone?! But no, line must go up, and even if changing the logo makes it go down, then oh well…
Golden parachute time! They can take some time off while figuring out what to fuck up next.
The thing is it’s been like that forever. Good products made by small- to medium-sized businesses have always attracted buyouts where the new owner basically converts the good reputation of the original into money through cutting corners, laying off critical workers, and other strategies that slowly (or quickly) make the product worse. Eventually the formerly good product gets bad enough there’s space in the market for an entrepreneur to introduce a new good product, and the cycle repeats.
I think what’s different now is, since this has gone on unabated for 70+ years, economic inequality means the people with good ideas for products can’t afford to become entrepreneurs anymore. The market openings are there, but the people that made everything so bad now have all the money. So the cycle is broken not by good products staying good, but by bad products having no replacements.