[spicyusername]

It seems that we've entered the rent-seeking phase of corporate capitalism.

Why spend any extra time, money, or energy making new products or services when you can instead make more money doing nothing but using your outsized political and economic power to coerce and extort consumers instead.

At this point it's impossible to see how any new merger or acquisition isn't just another step in the wrong direction, handing over yet more power to a small few.

At what point is a company too large to effectively serve the public interest? How can we turn this process around and redistribute the economic power of these gigantic corporations?

[llm_nerd]

A tiny musician withdrew their music, so I'm not sure how relevant breaking up mega firms is.

In cases like this, a creator puts their own music on a service like Amuse. They or that service (acting as their "publisher") removed it, which removes Apple's right to stream it.

Apple didn't take away this guy's Ladybug Music.

[vimax]

But Apple sure did market iMusic as a legitimate replacement for owned physical media while never mentioning the the fact you don't own it and it may disappear at any time. That fact is only mentioned buried somewhere in the EULA, and only popularized by people like the EFF and the victims.

[llm_nerd]

This person didn't own this music in iTunes. They are using Apple Music, which is a subscription service that has a fluctuating catalog of music. Right now there are some 100 million songs.

[iggldiggl]

Even with actually buying the music or whatever (and without DRM), it's interesting to consider that digital distribution means that things can be pulled from distribution from one moment to the next, without any warning. And the nature of digital distribution means that in that case there's no remaining stock still to be sold off which you could hunt down, and no second-hand market to speak of, either. So you're immediately down to either piracy, or else nothing…

[cowsup]

> A tiny musician withdrew their music, so I'm not sure how relevant breaking up mega firms is.

The later half of the post is about Sony's deal with Paramount ending, resulting in paid content being revoked from Playstation consoles.

Whether Sony refused to pay the previously-agreed upon rate, or Paramount decided to unreasonably increase what Sony was paying, we may never know, but both of those are definitely large enough for the commenter's remark to be relevant.

[dirtybirdnj]

> At what point is a company too large to effectively serve the public interest?

I use the term "maxium tribe size" to describe the human capability (or incapability) of extending compassion and understanding to a group. Companies don't fail. People fail within companies. People fail other people and hide behind "limited liability" and the sham that is corporate personhood.

Every person has a different MaxT. You may not feel the pain of violating this constraint yourself, but lots of people under you will suffer. You may actually feel GREAT, look at all the respect I have gained! I can make things happen, people listen to me... or now I can just ignore them...

You don't care because you are blinded by success.

Money and power are the worst poisons this world offers. It turns otherwise intelligent and caring people into awful piles of human effluence. It is IMPOSSIBLE to gain sufficient power to drive a company and not lose your sense of humanity. The idea that you will not violate your maximum tribe size in this exercise is insulting. You will quickly be insulated from the consequences of your actions, and no matter how depraved your behavior there will be a line of people congratulating and cheering you on because they desperately want to be the next person in line to enjoy the ride you are on.

The people driving enshittification are not human. They may share our genes but they are not part of our society or species anymore.

[bitwize]

The sociologist's term for this is Dunbar's number: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

It's about ~150 with some variance between individuals.

[rglullis]

I'm developing this theory for a while now that we should break all corporations that are bigger than Dunbar's number: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641

[Syonyk]

> It seems that we've entered the rent-seeking phase of corporate capitalism.

Doctorow's word "Enshittification" (which, amazingly, has a rather filled in Wikipedia page now - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification ) captures it quite well.