[vkou]

It would be one thing if those increases in productivity were improving my QOL as a consumer of produced goods, through cost reductions or increases in quality, but I'm not seeing any of that.

All that seems to be happening is that these productivity gains roll up as profits for the owner class.

What's the point of all that, to me?

[colechristensen]

It's easier to enter the owner class. It's easier for you to do a startup where you're not the expert in everything. It's easier for you to rely less on buying things when you can make them yourself.

The moat of the owner class is lower because now information is everywhere and it's less possible to hide behind trade secrets and implementation effort.

[vkou]

> It's easier to enter the owner class.

Based on what? The macroeconomics don't work out that way. IF productivity goes up, but consumption does not, that means that it's harder to enter the owner class, because fewer productive enterprises (owned by non-working people) are supplying a larger share of customer demand.

This may make a difference on the margins for people in the software bubble. But for the other 8 billion people on the planet, they aren't all going to become owners in your brave new world, unless consumer demand goes to the moon to soak up all that productivity. It's not doing that. Prices aren't dropping. Quality isn't increasing.

If you think I'm wrong - is there a cross-economy explosion of small one-person businesses that I'm somehow not seeing? Are gigacorps across the board all losing market share? Because on the macro scale I see nothing but further consolidation.

[colechristensen]

>Based on what?

Based on the far lower bar to get a product out the door.

[vkou]

Which is only relevant if one of the following two things happens:

1. Consumption goes up. (It's not going up. 40 hours at your job buys you less shit today than it did 3 years ago.)

2. Mega-corps start losing marketshare and revenue to this avalanche of new one-to-two-person businesses. (They aren't. Their revenues are climbing, which implies that consolidation is what's happening, not diversification.)

Your theory does not match reality.

[carlosjobim]

New markets are created all the time, as new products and services become viable. So one-to-two-person businesses don't necessarily compete with larger businesses for the same customers. And that's why both can have rising revenue.

[FridgeSeal]

None of that matters, if the populace lacks the purchasing power to sustain these “new markets”. It also assumes, that incumbents won’t enter the new markets, and acquire/squeeze/kill the new players.

[vkou]

Where are these new markets, and how much of my spend as a consumer is going towards them?

This isn't the invention of the internal combustion engine, or the textile loom, or the internet. The way people are doing work has changed a bit, but from the consumer end, all I see is shit like 'your health insurance will be 30% more expensive next year' and $11 for a gallon of milk and another rent increase and when I ask Google a question the results are sometimes a bit better and sometimes a bit worse.