You need to make the worst product that you’re still able to sell, and then make sure you sell it to the same people multiple times.
This is a lovely summary of modern capitalism. The carnival barkers would have you still believe that excellence rises to the top, but it doesn’t. What wins is the appearance of excellence, as a facade for the least effort possible, like you said.
Share markets created this perverse incentive that rewards businesses for appearing successful even if they produce fuck all. I’m thinking of Jack Welch era GE or today’s preeminent carbon credit trading firm, Tesla Motors.
It reminds me of the feedback loop engulfing the major LLMs as they consume more and more of their own content and start outputting lower and lower quality: the original goal of rewarding the best is long lost, replaced by making line go up at all costs.
Séamas gave us of the funniest story threads I’ve ever read on that cursed site: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/992006545473966082.html