Thread by @doctorow

As tech reaches terminal #enshittification, so hollowed that they're barely able to keep end-users or business customers locked in, capital's running the final #rugpull, where all value is transfered from those who make things for a living to those who own things for a living. 1/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/tec… 2/

"#ActivistInvestors" have triggered massive waves of tech layoffs, firing so many #TechWorkers so quickly that it's hard to even come up with an accurate count. The total is somewhere around *280,000* workers:

layoffs.fyi 3/

These layoffs have nothing to do with "trimming the fat" or correcting the hiring excesses of the lockdown. They're a project to transfer value from workers, customers and users to shareholders. 4/

#Google's layoff of 12,000 workers followed fast on the heels of gargantuan stock #buyback where the company pissed away enough money to pay those 12,000 salaries...for *the next 27 years*. 5/

The equation is simple: the more companies invest in maintenance, research, development, moderation, anti-fraud, customer service and all the other essential functions of the business, the less money there is to remit to people who do nothing and own everything. 6/

The tech sector has grown and grown since the first days of the PC - which were also the first days of #neoliberalism (literally: the Apple ][+ went on sale the same year Ronald Reagan hit the campaign trail). 7/

But despite a long-run tight labor market for tech workers, there have been two other periods of mass layoffs - the 2001 #DotcomCollapse and the #GreatFinancialCrisis of 2008.

Both of those were mass extinction events for startups and the workers who depended on them. 8/

The mass dislocations of those times were traumatic, and each one had its own aftermath. The dotcom collapse freed up tons of workers, servers, offices and furniture, and a massive surge in useful, user-centric technologies. 9/

The Great Financial Crisis created the gig economy and a series of exploitative, scammy "bro" startups, from #cryptocurrency grifts to services like #Airbnb, bent on converting the world's housing stock into unlicensed hotel rooms filled with hidden cameras. 10/

Likewise, the post-lockdown layoffs have their own character: as @eiramaybe writes on @StackOverflow, many in the vast cohort of laid-off tech workers is finding it relatively easy to find new tech jobs, outside of the tech sector:

stackoverflow.blog/2023/03/19/wha… 11/

May cites a @ZipRecruiter analysis that claims that 80% of laid-off tech workers found tech jobs within 3 months, and that there are 375,000 open tech roles in American firms today (and that figure is growing):

ziprecruiter.com/blog/laid-off-… 12/

There are plenty of tech jobs - just not in tech companies. They're in "energy and climate technology, healthcare, retail, finance, agriculture, and more" - firms with intensely technical needs and no technical staff. 13/

Historically, many of these firms would have outsourced their technological back-ends to the Big Tech firms that just destroyed so many jobs to further enrich the richest people on Earth. Now, those companies are hiring ex-Big Tech employees to run their own services. 14/

The Big Tech firms are locked in a race to see who can eat their seed corn the fastest. Spreading tech expertise out of the tech firms is a good thing, on balance. 15/

Big Tech's vast profits come from smaller businesses in the real economy who couldn't outbid the tech giants for tech talent - until now.

These mass layoff speak volumes about the ethos of Silicon Valley. 16/

The same investors who rent their garments demanding a bailout for #SiliconValleyBank to "help the everyday workers" are also the loudest voices for mass layoffs and transfers to shareholders. 17/

The self-styled "angel investor" who spent the weekend of #SVB's collapse all-caps tweeting dire warnings about the impact on "the middle class" and "Main Street" also gleefully DM'ed Elon Musk in the runup to his takeover of Twitter: 18/

> Day zero

> Sharpen your blades boys 🔪

> 2 day a week Office requirement = 20% voluntary departures.

newsletter.mollywhite.net/p/the-venture-… 19/

For many technologists, the allure of digital tools is the possibility of emancipation, a world where we can collaborate to make things without bosses or masters. 20/

But for the bosses and masters, automation's allure is the possibility of getting rid of workers, shattering their power, and replacing them with meeker, cheaper, more easily replaced labor. 21/

That means that workers who go from tech firms to firms in the real economy might be getting lucky. 22/

They're escaping the grasp of bosses who dream of a world where technology lets them pit workers against each other in a race to the bottom on wages, benefits and working conditions. 23/

They're landing with employers who are glad to have them as partners in their drive to escape Big Tech's grasp. 24/

Image:
University of North Texas Libraries (modified)
texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/met… 25/