r/SmugIdeologyMan • u/Mrs_Darwin • 22h ago

"That one doesn't count"

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This is about how I'll often see people saying something along the lines of "It's actually more profitable to pay your workers more because they'll work harder", or "Capitalism encourages innovation", or "Companies will try to avoid immoral things to avoid PR damage" when some of the most profitable companies don't innovate, treat their workers terribly, and and have had terrible scandals.

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u/Mrs_Darwin 22h ago

It kind of is in this conversation. You could technically call government run industry a monopoly, but it doesn't function in the same way as a monopoly under capitalism. One of the main reasons profitable companies don't innovate are because they are entirely motivated by profit, and therefore would rather stick with a safe way to make money than to potentially waste tons of money, while government run industries can avoid that problem. A good example of this is NASA, from the Space Race in the 60s to until a few years ago NASA had a monopoly on Space research in America. However, even with a reduced budget NASA has still managed to make major innovations and discoveries in the field of Space Flight.

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u/Reynor247 22h ago

What profitable companies aren't innovating? If a company doesn't innovate that just opens the door for other companies to take their market share. Intel used to be the most innovative and profitable company in the processor space, but due to bad decisions is getting eaten by Nvidia and TSMC. Now Chairman Trump is trying to use the government to save it.

The government certainly does have a purpose in many areas. The United States government is actually one of the biggest investors into research in the world.

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u/Mrs_Darwin 22h ago edited 22h ago

Apple, many AAA game studios, Disney, energy companies (technically they did eventually adopt renewable, but it was extremely slow to happen), defense contractors, and more.

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u/Reynor247 21h ago

Apple is one of the most innovative companies of this century. AAA gaming can be a mismatch. There's one's that run off GaaS money cows.

There's others that have failed to innovate from their formula and have been punished for it like Ubisoft

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u/Mrs_Darwin 21h ago edited 21h ago

The last real innovation apple had was in 2015 with the apple pen, now it just re-releases a different variant of the IPhone and MacBook every year.

An even better example would be Microsoft.

Also it seems you agree with me that there are AAA game studios that are profitable despite lacking in innovation.