| Fair point, but I had in mind the particular flavor of short-term thinking that we see post-2010. We had a couple decades, prior to that, when there was a business trend to be 'customer focused' which closely relates to long-term thinking: win good-will from your customers, from your suppliers, from your community... even from your competitors. To whatever extent the customer-focus trend managed to saturate, it seems to have died with the success of FA*NG companies around 15 years ago. Why bother making products that last when Apple makes billions with irreparable devices? Why bother providing stellar customer service when Google hardly bothers to provide any customer service? Why care about high quality design and materials when when Amazon just sells cheap knockoffs made from wax and scotch tape? Why even be lawful, when Facebook can snow the public and regulators and not wind up in jail? Short-term thinking has plagued various areas of life forever, certainly, but this FA*NG-era death of customer focus is why I feel things are particularly bad now. |