I see a lot of people complaining about capitalism and in their complaints there are always two problems, first is that they don't understand the fundamentals of capitalism, and the second is that what they really have a problem with isn't capitalism, it's MODERN capitalism. The concept of capitalism is that people deserve to be compensated for their work and those that work better deserve better compensation. Those that come up with better products will get more market share and thereby receive better rewards.
If you have two co-workers, one that is always late, never contributes to the project and spends all their time at the office playing candy crush on their phone, and another one that is punctual, gets their projects done early, and is constantly striving to improve their skill set. Which one should be rewarded with a promotion? A raise?
That's capitalism. The problem is that somewhere in the 70s/80s there was a shift in capitalism and it moved from 'Companies exist to give their customers the best service/product' to 'companies exist to make money' and this is where the problems started as companies shifted their focus, cutting costs, raising prices, and doing anything, and everything, to increase profit ... at the expense of their employees and customers. ... People ceased to matter except as a means of making money.
I'm not saying that pure capitalism is perfect, greedy people will always take advantage of others, but don't act like they don't do it under socialism as well. Under socialism, no matter how pure the motives of the set up, a 'ruling class' will emerge, they will get more, they will give favor to those that serve them and create problems for those that don't. Corruption exists in both systems and it is the greedy that will find a way to benefit themselves through it.
Of course education is at fault here as well, because one of the KEY factors in capitalism is the power of the consumer, as power that most don't consider or even seem to know exists. I've talked about this before in various rambles in the past. But people will complain and rant against various things they don't like, while at the same time paying the price to get the items.
Take the issues with the last round of game consoles where there were massive shortages because scalpers bought huge batches of the consoles only to sell them on ebay for 3-4 times the MSRP. People yelled, people screamed, people called Microsoft and Sony and the scalpers horrible names, but you know what? Not a single scalper had any units left at the end. Every console that they bought and marked up sold. So what lesson did they learn? People will pay that much for the consoles.
Well Sony and Microsoft should have done more to stop it! ... Realistically, what difference does it make to them? They sold their product and got their asking price, that's all they're technically interested in doing. What people do with the consoles after they get them is not their concern. Realistically it is up to the CONSUMER to shut down scalpers ... if scalpers couldn't sell the units they bought, or couldn't sell enough of them to make a profit they would stop buying them. Trust me, if the best sale the scalpers could make was at MSRP or maybe even MSRP + 15% it wouldn't be an issue, there wouldn't be enough money in it to make it worth the effort. But if they know they can buy 10 units, keep one for themselves, and sell 9 at even 2x MSRP they'll do it in a heartbeat, if they think there's the remotest chance they can get more than that they won't be able to charge up those credit cards fast enough.
Lack of economic education AND a society that reinforces the constant FOMO of materialism means people mistake 'want' for 'need' and are willing to pay stupid amounts of money for the new shiny ... be it consoles, smart phones, tablets, laptops, cars, or anything else. Companies know it and take advantage of it every day.
The problem is, it's unsustainable. Entertainment is really starting to feel this wall, trying to find more and more ways to slash budgets and expenses because, at the end of the day, the market is saturated. Netflix, for example, was so profitable early on because they had solid licensed content and a rapidly growing consumer base as more and more people came on board with streaming, so, with money to invest they went into production, making their own shows and creating some very successful movies and series. But they went too heavily in that direction as though planning on continued growth in their subscriber base ... but then several things hit ... one they largely achieved market saturation most people that could afford a subscription HAD one so they stopped getting new customers. Two, they let a lot of their licensed old shows and movies lapse so some of the content people wanted on the platform went elsewhere. Also, three, several other streaming platforms began springing up, competing for those subscriptions because people couldn't afford to subscribe to ALL of them. The first meant that their income growth tapered off, the second and third meant that people canceled or paused their accounts to view other platforms that had more of what they wanted to watch at the time.
As all of this was happening, various costs began to increase including the cost of maintaining the network infrastructure and storage required, not to mention the writer and actor strikes, production crew cost increases, and, let's face it, increased cost of living across the board effecting everyone's budgets. But the exec level, and the investors, want, no demand year to year growth in the profit .... they don't care that costs went up, that subscriptions are down, they want their money and if that means cutting jobs, canceling shows, and selling assets then dammit that's what they're going to do to hit those profit numbers ... never mind that it will make it that much harder NEXT year because you dug a hole this year ..... The bankers, the investors, and the executive level decisions makers that are doing this only care about the money ... only care about how much they can line their pockets now ... and THAT's the problem.
It's why originality has left Hollywood ... they don't want to make anything new ... they don't want new IPs or ideas because they are untried and might not work out ... they want sure things because they can't afford to back a bad film. Worse still, streaming has been horrible for Hollywood as it has lost them MOST of their after market sales, the real place that the studios recovered their money in most instances AND it is a major factor in the fact that fewer people are going to theaters so hitting them on both ends. And the decision makers aren't movie people ... they're bankers ... in the past the people running things, making decisions, loved making movies .... they've been replaced by people that love making money.
Here's the thing, and I've found this true more often than not ... in most pursuits if your goal is just to 'make money' you'll usually fail. If your goal is to 'make a product' there's a reasonable chance that if you're serious about it, if your HEART is in it, that it will make you money. Maybe not a lot, maybe not fast, maybe not consistently, but those things will be defined as much by how much effort you apply and how consistent you are in doing it.
I did some work with a group of film makers several years ago. They had several hit movie series, mostly horror, and, as we were getting ready to start up another production several of us were sitting around a table and someone asked how they did it, how they got started. The answer was they produced a LOT of films ... most of which failed ... but each year they generally managed to get 1 that made them enough money to bankroll them for another year, and eventually they got one that set them up, let them improve their product and gave them the ability to branch out. Of course successful ones got sequels and gave them some degree of stable income that they could bank on. In the end though, they did it because they loved doing it, and all they ever really wanted was enough to make their next one.
