Maybe they think they are. But they still have to live in the world full of products that are worse than they need to be. In a world that is spiraling into derpification all you can buy is crap that you have to then fix with more crap.
Economists: The shareholders only care about return on their investments.
Shareholders: I would prefer to not watch my kid die of leukemia. And it would be nice not to have to replace my dishwasher every three years. And while we are at it...
Exactly! I so often think about this. I don't know anything about sociology or economics or statistics to even have the words to meaningfully phrase my concern, but can give examples.
First, to make it easier to reason about, assume that with any given thing, what you go along with becomes commonplace and is done by everyone, all the time -- and if you resist, it is not done by anyone. (On smaller scales, especially 1-on-1 relationships, this might be literally true, so)
So, for example, you can increase profits a bit by making your website take 2 seconds longer to load for the benefit of JavaScript fuckery. Never mind privacy, just load times. Now, in the universe where everyone mirrors your actions, now every website you load takes 2 seconds longer to load. In some cases that means going from 20 seconds to 22, so no big deal... but HN goes from 0.1s to 2.1s, hah. Can you imagine how much time that would take up, for maybe not even that big amount money, that can't buy you time?
Or advertising, propaganda, etc. Yeah, you can sell your thing for more, or to people who don't really need it or would be better off without it... but unless you have a huge corporation, you don't even have that many products, yet now you live in a world full of advertising, and the pollution, waste of energy, and bad choices of people you love, or maybe people who end up hurting you because of the shit choices they made based on propaganda.
You can make "sponsored content", sure. But now philosophy and deep thought are dead, because everybody else is lacing whatever they say with a nod to some sponsor.
I really wish I could describe what feels like this hugely important thing that is kind of invisible to us, because we have nothing to compare it to, or the time or resources to carve out a large enough space in which to be different and then compare the results. If we only could see (I can't, it's more like a hunch, something I can't put my finger on but also not shake off) how all these things add up, with a kind of bird's eye view...
I imagine it would look like a local optimum, right next to a HUGE optimum. Like thirsty people fighting over a stone to suck on, next to a lake with clear, fresh water, unbeknownst to them.
I get you. Your image at the end is hauntingly vivid.
This is what government is for. Should be for: should be doing.
I don't mean at the micro-level of regulating website loading times: that would be ludicrous. I mean at the macro-level of guiding society away from harmful equilibria. I can't suggest policies which will accomplish all of these, and reasonable people can disagree about implementations. That's OK: so long as we are aligned on that purpose we can iterate on attempted solutions. With that said, here are some harmful equilibria to address, and at least a top-level approach to take, or goal to set:
- Carbon (and other pollution and waste) taxes which internalize costs that are currently born by everyone, in order to profit a few.
- Privacy protections which make business-models built around surveillance and micro-targeted advertising impossible.
- Corporate governance and financial market models which discourage short-term "line goes up" thinking.
- Tax structures and business regulations which encourage research and development instead of stock buy-backs, and increasing workers' wages instead of executive compensation.
I'd bet that at least a couple of those would improve website loading times, too.
One thing I noticed that went by the wayside during my lifetime was companies basically stopped paying to train workers. Would be good to implement tax policies that strongly encourage companies to go back to doing that.
