This is a perfect example unfortunately of why Corporate Oligarchy has found a weak spot in free market economics and so far, the free market has not been able to adapt and present an answer to it.
The idea is that if there's competition, the competing private interests will seek to pull customers away from others towards their products by offering the best value. I add a feature or lower the prices, people come by my stuff instead of yours and you have to add a feature or lower the price of your stuff to stay afloat. The customer wins when we have to appeal to them and offer the best bang for their buck. That's the standard free market argument, and it's sound most of the time.
But Corporate Oligarchy found a flaw. When there's only a tiny handful of companies producing something or controlling access to something, and the barrier to entry to join them and produce it as well is so high that there functionally will never be more than a handful of companies that make it, and when all of their corporate leadership knows each other, went to the same business schools, go to the same country clubs, the same conferences, the same vacation spots, and so on, there is nothing stopping them from simply agreeing to fuck the customer over as a unified group.
And this will play out here. Microsoft and Nintendo are both right now, almost certainly in the process of speaking with each other and Sony in private and basically saying 'let's all just stop having physical media at the same time. It's really just us three who produce gaming systems, and if we all decide switch to digital only around the same time, all of our customers will have no where to turn. We can all cut the costs of producing discs and cases and cards and all the rest, and we can all benefit from the Games as a Service model'.
Corporate Oligarchy is when there might be multiple private competing businesses on paper, but in reality, they all view each other as on the same team, and us the customer as the enemy team to be milked and swindled in the cheapest easiest way possible. And there are a ton of different areas of business that are under the same system, way beyond just gaming. A handful of multinationals control an entire industry or product segment, and they work with each other to make sure they win, and the customer loses, even if they're supposed to be working against each other on paper. The opposite of what free market competition is supposed to do. I have no idea what the solution to this is.
This is a perfect example unfortunately of why Corporate Oligarchy has found a weak spot in free market economics and so far, the free market has not been able to adapt and present an answer to it.
The idea is that if there's competition, the competing private interests will seek to pull customers away from others towards their products by offering the best value. I add a feature or lower the prices, people come by my stuff instead of yours and you have to add a feature or lower the price of your stuff to stay afloat. The customer wins when we have to appeal to them and offer the best bang for their buck. That's the standard free market argument, and it's sound most of the time.
But Corporate Oligarchy found a flaw. When there's only a tiny handful of companies producing something or controlling access to something, and the barrier to entry to join them and produce it as well is so high that there functionally will never be more than a handful of companies that make it, and when all of their corporate leadership knows each other, went to the same business schools, go to the same country clubs, the same conferences, the same vacation spots, and so on, there is nothing stopping them from simply agreeing to fuck the customer over as a unified group.
And this will play out here. Microsoft and Nintendo are both right now, almost certainly in the process of speaking with each other and Sony in private and basically saying 'let's all just stop having physical media at the same time. It's really just us three who produce gaming systems, and if we all decide switch to digital only around the same time, all of our customers will have no where to turn. We can all cut the costs of producing discs and cases and cards and all the rest, and we can all benefit from the Games as a Service model'.
Corporate Oligarchy is when there might be multiple private competing businesses on paper, but in reality, they all view each other as on the same team, and us the customer as the enemy team to be milked and swindled in the cheapest easiest way possible. And there are a ton of different areas of business that are under the same system, way beyond just gaming. A handful of multinationals control an entire industry or product segment, and they work with each other to make sure they win, and the customer loses, even if they're supposed to be working against each other on paper. The opposite of what free market competition is supposed to do. I have no idea what the solution to this is.