Misleading title.
There are indeed “weird blogs” they just have to be devoid of capitalist funding.
Corey Doctorow’s Pluralistic seems in many ways to be a natural extension of his BoingBoing days albeit a bit more serious than the lighthearted BoingBoing.
MetaFilter fully became a non-profit and still retains a more a blog-esque format than it’s contemporaries.
Mother Jones has a strong online presence and has avoided the capitalist machine for it’s entire existence.
The thing is (and the more important part of this story is) that submitting to the capitalist machine is to submit to its machinations and unwillingness to adhere to the age-old social contract of a business producing profit to be sufficient enough for a business to exist. Modern capitalism is indeed a shell-game of extracting maximum value, essentially truly squeezing blood from a stone until the stone no longer even exists. Anyone who willingly plays this game will be bitten by this game, unless they themselves become ruthless capitalists and focus all their energy on shell-game chicanery over producing actual products, services, or content. There is no end-game here where the plucky capitalist-minded business-owner can overcome all and become the master of their own domain. The few who have (Valve, for example) had a solid financial footing to begin their more unique forays into profit-driving and they have stayed independent companies instead of publicly owned companies. That alone has saved them, and most of them (again, like Valve) started in an era before the behemoth of VC (Vulture/Vampire Capitalism) took hold, and made their early profits soon enough to not need such outside funding. Starting such a company today? Without outside funding? Get real. You’d have to be someone like Gabe Newell, who exited Microsoft with enough money to take a risk to make a profit of his own without needing outside stake, and the number of Gabe Newell’s exiting industry to make their own goes at new business are exceedingly rare. The ones that actually succeed in making a profitable company are even rarer.
In capitalist America, the “free market” binds you and dictates your future.
“Vampire Capitalists” – Using this term now, thanks!
In many cases, the best decision for the firm is the one that directly undermines the company it controls.
How though? I don’t doubt this is a real thing, but there isn’t really a satisfying explanation being offered here. What the article is saying sounds like the process is, take profitable business, throw in garbage, somehow more profit. Where’s the money coming from?
Look up private equity and corporate raids.
Short version - Layoffs increase short term profits, then you let the business die to sell off the assets. This is generally considered a safer strategy than long term investing because it doesn’t require expertise and you get paid quicker (compared to buying a company and waiting 5+ years to turn a profit on the purchase).
I have read some articles about this, and I can see how it makes sense in some contexts. Like iirc when this happened to Red Lobster, they were able to make money through a combination of ripping off a certain group of investors, and the significant value of the company’s real estate holdings. That makes sense.
In the case of online magazine equivalents though I really don’t get it. What is there to sell off? Shouldn’t any potential long term profits be priced in at the point they get bought out? If the company has tangible assets like offices, couldn’t they just sell those without firing anyone and have people work from home? The intangible assets are all directly tied to the publication’s reputation and audience, which seems like it would die off fast without anything worthwhile on the site.
In the case of online magazine equivalents though I really don’t get it. What is there to sell off? Shouldn’t any potential long term profits be priced in at the point they get bought out? If the company has tangible assets like offices, couldn’t they just sell those without firing anyone and have people work from home?
Oh god no! The tangible assets like buildings and land only increase in value, you don’t get rid of those. You sell it to a holding company and lease it back to the original company for a profit (and probably several other companies who want space, too).
You then strip operations down to the bare minimum. A couple of writers at most and they’re only really there to make sure the automated AI article generator doesn’t accidentally publish a napalm recipe or some shit. You want to run it with as few people as possible to still generate enough content to run ads. Utilise your fanbase to submit content that you can run ads on because they’ll do it for free or a chance to win a t-shirt or some shit. No fans? No problem! Rip everything off relevant subreddits or other sites doing the exact same thing. Make up unsourced slop to piss people off because it generates engagement like you wouldn’t believe. More eyeballs, more ad revenue.
And you make damn sure that the company never makes a profit on paper so you don’t have to pay the relevant taxes. You made $50k more than you expected? Better pay a consultant (you) $40k to find out why. Then increase that rent by $15k.
