AutistoMephisto

Right, back when they were just a bookstore. All I really know about Amazon is that they focused on long-term profitability over increased short-term profits to expand and capture more of the market, and it worked. The problem is that not everyone can do that. They spent every year since 1994 operating at a loss, when anyone else would have been snapped up by another company in the space, and it’s not clear how that didn’t happen. The landscape of e-commerce would have been very different if it had.

Exactly. A systemic issue with capitalistic markets is that they inherently select for short term thinking.

Does it make sense to destroy 90% of your profitability 5 years from now for a 20% bump in profit this quarter? Well, yes, it does, because that’s 20% more profit to expand and take over the market.

Even if a business were to try to make good long term decisions, it would immediately be crushed and pushed out of the market by all of its competitors willing to make those shortsighted decisions for immediate profits.

Except in the case of Amazon, thanks to AWS they were able to make good long-term decisions with their e-commerce platform by making short term decisions with AWS.

Even as a man, I don’t understand my fellow men’s aversion to seeking the ear of a licensed therapist/mental health professional. Cost is a concern, I get that. I have health insurance that covers it, so I don’t have to worry about that too much. So it’s gotta be something deeper. Like an aversion to confronting oneself? I understand that. Introspection can be frightening, especially if you’re encountering parts of your psyche you’d rather weren’t there. Or maybe there’s past trauma you’d rather not unpack. But a good therapist will be in your corner. They’ll be like the healer in an RPG party, dishing out buffs and heals for you, or maybe even inflict debuffs on your inner demons.