[monkeyodeath]

The business philosophy of "maximize shareholder value above all else" is going to eviscerate our society until there's nothing of quality left.

Hollywood has always been a dirty and money-focused business, but it seems like the latest crop of execs are hellbent on entirely divorcing the creative enterprise from its human elements. Now studios are just exotic financial instruments that seek to turn "content" into stock prices.

[mrtksn]

Everything measured and optimised for shallow goals goes into the gutter. As the analytics overtook decision making, the quality of everything declined sharply.

IMHO, it's happening because we the humans optimize for proxy metrics which once were good as a proxy to the real thing but with the computer age they turned into shallow goals that end up destroying the real thing as the optimisation became too robust. Removing the human element from the machinery creates a fatigue on the remaining parts and the consumers. All jobs have become horrible, even if the productivity increases the optimisations end up destroying the workforce and this started eating into the society because no one is happy with their job and life. Seamen no longer can see the world through their sailing career because the stays at the ports are too short, a person can't have a simple job and a simple life because the simple job is optimised into exhaustion.

[monkeyodeath]

"As the analytics overtook decision making, the quality of everything declined sharply."

Pretty much. I'm sure Hollywood execs have always wanted to make as much money as they could, but they also (formerly) didn't want to be known as guys who only made terrible movies. Prestige, vanity, relationships, reputation...unanalyzable human factors are really important for the production of human-centric products like art and entertainment.

[mrtksn]

Couldn't Have Said It Better. It expands to everything, every job has perks and qualities that cannot be measured qualitatively and optimisations eat into it. As people spend most of their lives working, this degradation destroys people's life satisfaction too.

[pseudalopex]

Goodhart's law and the McNamara fallacy.

[innisfreehoney]

Or if you want to get philosophical about it, reification. Which is something the Frankfurt School (despised by some as "Cultural Marxists") discussed with great depth and subtlety

[eatsyourtacos]

Completely agree. And the worst part is that sentiment is used as a completely valid reason/excuse.

"They are just doing what is legally required of them and maximizing shareholder value!!".

People throw that out in there as if it's some inherent law of nature that can't be questioned. No- it's an intentionally created human construct by the rich & powerful to completely excuse them of any actions.

[davidw]

"Captain's log, Stardate 3034. The Enterprise is now in its 23rd reboot."

[rightbyte]

Made me chuckle.

I can't recall any STNG episode where they solve some tech issue by doing the same thing but after a restart or two.

Didn't computers at the time of writing have the state problem solved by reboots? Like, reloading the program was essentially the same thing or something?

[saltcured]

However, they more than once had time problems solved by state leakage...

[Sterm]

The quality of movies released from Hollywood in the last 5 years has been abysmal. It made sense to have large studios when film cost dollars per foot and needed an army of editors in post. Today you could film a 1960s blockbuster on 10k of equipment and a medium sized desktop computer with a few friends.

[gruez]

> The business philosophy of "maximize shareholder value above all else" is going to eviscerate our society until there's nothing of quality left.

Well no, because there are literally an entire industry (luxury goods) where the main selling point is quality, and I don't see any sign that's going to disappear anytime soon.

[LapsangGuzzler]

I’m not sure how familiar you are with luxury goods, but there are lots of YouTube channels and analyses of the quality of luxury products, and it’s not what you think it is. They’re maximizing shareholder value too, they’re just going after people narcissistic and wealthy enough to not notice that they’re buying junk that’s dressed up because the brand name means something to them.

[karaterobot]

Some of them, sure. But a lot of luxury products are Veblen goods, where the demand is created by the high price itself, rather than the quality. Status symbols and the like.

[ohgodplsno]

If you think all LVMH workers have good working conditions, or that materials are sourced ethically, I have bad news for you.

Quality doesn't prevent the search of profit maximization. Hell, luxury goods aren't even about quality. The price/quality ratio on your Vuitton Bag or your Ferrari is down in the gutter. You're buying a social status, not quality.

[spacemadness]

Our society will be eviscerated, but at least we’ll have luxury goods,

[bugglebeetle]

Quality and price are frequently orthogonal in the luxury goods business.