LOL. If you have to buy your customers to get them to use your product, maybe you aren’t offering a good product to begin with.
That stood out to me too. This is effectively the investor class coercing use of AI, rather than how tech has worked in the past, driven by ground-up adoption.
That’s not what this is. They find profitable businesses and replace employees with Ai and pocket the spread. They aren’t selling the Ai
They’re rent seeking douchbags who don’t add value to shit. If there was ever an advertisement for full on vodka and cigarettes for breakfast bolshevism it’s these assholes.
There is another major reason to do it. Businesses are often in multi year contracts with call center solutions, and a lot of call center solutions have technical integrations with a business’ internal tooling.
Swapping out a solution requires time and effort for a lot of businesses. If you’re selling a business on an entirely new vendor, you have to have a sales team hunting for businesses that are at a contract renewal period, you have to lure them with professional services to help with implementation, etc.
Plenty of good, non-AI technologies out there that businesses are just slow or just don’t have the budget to adopt.
Isn’t the MO for venture capitalists to run businesses into the ground, make them owe debt to themselves, cannibalise businesses from the inside and then run away with a profit while they bankrupt?
Not surprising to make a decision that kills a business because the entire point is to kill the golden goose
PE firms do that, VC wants a return of thier investment.
VCs are value extractors too, they just use a different methodology from the PE pigs.
PE’s also want a return … and VC is a form of PE
I know almost nothing about finance, by choice, but isn’t that equity fund managers that do that? Regardless, I reckon it’d be pretty funny if all equity funds were made illegal by the Criminal in Chief because they have the word ‘equity’ in them.
It’s not really their MO, the idea is that they invest in high risk startups in a trade of ownership. Startup’s are already at high risk of failing.
The thing with private equity (VC is a subversion of PE) is that they do everything in their power to gain as much profit as possible. Most of the time in a short time span (1 to 5 years) and then sell the company or dividend out as much as they can. That’s why some countries (like NL) have laws at how much you can dividend out btw, it is still easy to kill a company.
They will also not kill cash cows, aka companies/products/services that generate a nice amount of profit without doing much to generate that profit.
Using PE is can be a decent option, but treat it like crowdfunding financing. Promise them a certain ROI and give them a minority interest in the company structure (50% of shares mines a single share or less).
Every interaction costs them money, right?
Sounds like we need to put all the AI call centers on a conference call with each other.
You mean… like this ? https://youtu.be/t-7mQhSZRgM
“This call may be used for quality assurance and training purposes.”
“Hello-o, this is Lenny.”
bunch of greedy fucks.
greed should be a registered mental illness that’s no different than OCD, schizophrenia, or PTSD.
Everybody wants interest on their savings or a return on the investment. This is pretty ingrained in society, and it forces banks to invest into companies which need to get a profit above what would be normally acceptable. Combine that with narcissist personalities and the Anglo-Saxon mindset, and you get companies that do everything for profit maximization.
Which in turn causes those companies to grow and buy out companies who do not share that sentiment, which will never grow massive.
It also doesn’t help that we have been overpaying for things like hard- and software compared to the actual cost in the bookkeeping of these companies. A lot of personal time is often invested in startups that is excluded in the bookkeeping, which makes for higher profit margins. Plus, people go for the convents of things like Amazon even though it is often worse than local alternatives.
Everyone is greedy. It’s just rational maximization of profits. You do too. Or would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
Everyone is greedy.
No they’re not. Don’t assume your fucked-up values are universal.
It’s just rational maximization of profits.
Only psychopaths and students in intro economic courses think solely in those terms.
You do too.
No I don’t. I chose my current job because it’s technically interesting but allows me a better quality of life than the much better paying job I had before that. And it helps society rather than enriching some money-hoarders.
Don’t forget the MBAs. The original motherfuckers who ruin everything.
Or would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
I already have. I could make so much more money with my skillset doing incredibly antisocial things…I choose not to.
Example?
No, most people do not seek out competitor businesses (or even businesses in other sectors like in this case) so they can fire all the human workers in the hope of making more money.
Non-tax-deductable donations are a voluntary waiver of salary. Most people have ethics and a conscience, its just the greedy minority that fuck it up for the community-minded majority.
It’s just rational maximization of profits.
No, it really isn’t. It is rational to consider all upsides and downsides (profit just being one) of a decision and then weigh them according to your own personal priorities before trying to achieve an optimal result. This very rarely results in profits being the only priority.
would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
Yes, I tend to vote for increased taxes to invest in education, environment, social welfare. And yes, that includes progressive taxes that hit me harder (as long as that also applies to the wealthy), and vice taxes that target my vices
In the meantime ask your boss for a lower salary so your company can make more profits.
Hopefully you can see the difference between working for someone else profit, vsinvestments in all of our well being and a more fair tax structure
Every country needs a more fair tax structure. Sadly a lot of people don’t seem to get that here in NL (among other countries). Even the left doesn’t really want to fix it. since increasing social security for the lower class makes it so the middle class pay a lot more taxes percentage wise.
In the US we do that to some extent but not for the wealthy. Somehow we ended up with upper middle class paying the highest rate, then tax rates dropping as you get wealthy. It’s fair that I pay a higher rate than someone with less income, but very much not fair that I pay a higher tax rate than wealthy people
Is that actual rates? Or is the looking at different kind of taxes? I was talking about income tax + social security if you get it.
People with massive company structures can always pay less tax. Or at least less at this point in time. The only way to change rhis if every country works together to fix it
So there is levels to greediness? You can call for higher taxes to have your conscience clear so you can be greedy elsewhere?
Everyone is greedy. Nobody wants less income if it affects their quality of life.
True, but there’s no reason that can’t coexist with a sense of fairness, and witha long term greater good
Of course I don’t want to pay more taxes. However I realize I’ve been more successful than some, and a more progressive tax scheme is fair. I realize I have vices and don’t mind if there is a discouragement, as long as it applies to everyone fairly. I realize my success is based on a successful society and understand it is only fair to leave society in at least as good condition as I found it. Most importantly I have kids so I’m all for building a better future for them …. And understand that includes the society they will live in, the environment they will live in
There is a difference between wanting to live comfortably, which is rational, and actively seeking ways to exploit others for your own gain beyond what you need to live. Greed isn’t “I want to have enough”, it’s “I can never have enough”.
Society has always thrived on a measure of generosity. So many cultures have customs around giving gifts, because that’s how you build a support network of people that will help you out when you need it. Greed is shortsighted and destructive.
Or would you want to voluntarily waive parts of your salary?
Depends on the reason. If the waived amount goes to paying for healthcare, support someone suddenly unemployed or maintain infrastructure that I or other people need? Sure.
I’ve never seen anything good come from companies with the words “equity” or “capital” in their names.
Shareholder value? Capital gains? Golden parachute? These are all great things if you belong to the owner class.
Wait until AI reduces it to just owners.
If you thought your service was bad now, it’s gonna get worse.
Isn’t that what we call “Innovation” in our capitalist society?
You build a thing. Pour your blood sweat and tears into it. Some VC goon buys it during a downturn. They fire most of the staff. Strip the copper out of the walls. Make the service shittier and shittier until all that is left is its faltering brand recognition then sell it all for a bundle to the very next sucker they can?
Innovation is enshittification these days. It used to be invention, where entirely new products and materials came about. Then there was innovation, incremental improvement coupled with price hikes. Now “innovation” seems strictly rearranging deck chairs with worse service, and reducing employee count for increased profits.
In the 90s it was “selling it for parts” where the market value of the whole company was lower than the component parts, so buy it on the open market for a bargain, then slice and dice and profit.
These days, they’re squeezing the lemons for all they can get.
The “corporate raider” existed before that, infamously thanks to people like Frank Lorenzo dismantling Eastern Airlines in the ‘80s or Icahn to TWA. The late ‘70s and early ‘80s were rife with corporate raiders.
I am so glad I got out of IT before AI hit. I don’t know how I would have handled customer calls asking why our chat is telling them their shit works when it doesn’t or to cover their computer in cooking oils or whatever.
And only after they banged their head against the AI for two hours and are already pissed will they reach someone. No thanks.
Thank god I can troubleshoot on my own.
When VC and PE call a company or industry “mature” it means they don’t see increasing revenue, only something to be sucked dry and sold for parts. To them, consistent revenue is worthless, it must be skyrocketing or nothing. If you want to see this in action right now, look what Broadcom is doing to VMWare. They also saw VMWare as a “mature company”.
Fuck Broadcom. We’re still dealing with that bullshit, as there aren’t a lot of viable alternatives at the enterprise scale.
Broadcom management deserve gulag
When VC and PE call a company or industry “mature” it means
It means they see a hog ready to be slaughtered.
The movie Outsourced (2006) didn’t foretell AI, but it did a pretty good job foretelling how the offshoring trend was going to unfold.
Dang! You meet my approval as a movie buff. That wasn’t a widely available film.
I liked the first half of the film, but it abruptly turns into a different movie. The second half isn’t bad, but it’s not what I wanted and it’s not what was advertised in the trailers and marketing.
Going to add that to my watch list.
Enshittificatin intensifies
Can all you money-grubbing psychopaths just fuck off and stop ruining everything please?
Rich psychos: FUCK NO!
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“What if we threw a ton of money after the absolute shit ton of money we threw away?”
VCs ruin everything they touch.
Looks like the Oligarchs are serious about crashing the economy.
Ohh no. Please don’t destroy call centers. What will we do without them. Ohh the humanity.
Good luck calling your bank, social security, healthcare, DMV, IRS, etc with the obscure problems we all have, if they’re a poorly trained chatbot
Good luck calling them already. A lot of services make it flat out impossible to talk to a human.
They’re not going away, they’re just going to be more persistent with their cold calling, and more infuriating with their call answering.
I had an issue with some equipment from ATT, it took about 6 different try’s before I finally found a human capable enough to help resolve my issue, which involved replacing the equipment.
This future sounds so much worse to fix a complicated issue.
