(goes through an extended magical girl transformation, by the end of which I look the exact same, except I immediately shoot you with my perfectly normal gun that wasn’t there before)
Re: dramatically changing 19th century dress silhouettes, thinkin about the time a whaler finally came home from a 4 year voyage and was just like ‘WHAT IS GOING ON’ when reencountering hoop skirts.
I think like, the death of Vine and Rabbit, Wikipedia constantly needing to beg for money, Discord depending so heavily on venture capital, Facebook turning towards spying on users to generate a return on all the venture capital that got them started, Adobe creative suite turning into a subscription rather than a single product you buy, the strangulation of streaming entertainment as every company pulls their content and makes it exclusive to their service, are all great examples of how like, it really doesn’t matter if something is legitimately useful, efficient, or beloved, it is next to impossible for a service to exist if it doesn’t make shareholders increasing amounts of money year after year. Which may seem like a “no duh” type of statement, but it’s a very simple window into how the profit motive makes products and services worse, not better. And how that’s not just a matter of certain companies or ceos being bad and greedy on an individual level, but is an inescapable factor of an economy where existence is dependent on generating capital.
i can’t vibe with anyone who thinks icarus was an ignorant idiot for flying too close to the sun. “oh i’d never do that i would have remembered my father’s warning and been fine”. do you seriously think that after years of imprisonment, feeling the sun on your face and the open air beneath your wings, you would be able to focus on anything but the joy of being alive and free? do you actually think that if you were given the opportunity to go where nobody has never been before, you wouldn’t want to push it to the limit? to dare to be the first to try what no one else has ever even thought possible? do you honestly think you’re too good for your own human nature? look me in the eyes and tell me if i strapped a pair of wings to your back that could take you wherever you wanted to go whenever you pleased that you’d be careful and sensible about it. you are not better than icarus just because you have the benefit of his example.
ALT
