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Wrench
I always cringe at this argument for tech companies. “Ohh, but they aren’t/weren’t profitable!”
That is by design. Any money that comes in, they double, triple invest in growth with some nebulous end goal that gets continuously kicked down the road to keep growing revenue year after year.
It’s their business model to not be profitable.
They don’t need to grow at break neck speeds. They can reduce spending and grow slowly at sustainable speeds if they choose. But they want to corner the domestic market, then then international market, then expand into adjacent markets, etc etc until they implode.
Same argument was made for ride share corporations during the gig worker reform initiatives. “Woe is Uber, they don’t make money! They can’t afford to give drivers benefits, or a minimum wage if rides are slow!”
No, they could have, if they didn’t decide to throw mountains of cash on driverless R&D, international expansion, lobbying to kill taxi laws, subsidized ride rates in new markets, etc.
Same as Twitter paying celebrities to use their platform, news stations to adopt and push their platform, etc etc.
They like the idea of a catastrophic event out of their control, or caused by sinners. They don’t like to be the cause because of their own greed and indifference.
I visited some friends in Japan. On my way out, one gave me a couple premium looking bowls of instant Ramen.
I was like “oh hey, thanks, but that takes up a lot of space. I don’t have room in my luggage”
He just said “for airport” and it was all clear. I ate like a champ!
Not even that weird for Japan.
Been to a few maid cafes, only seems fair that lady customers can get their WTFs in too.