"Paul" wrote

| Every business plan has this line as the last step:
|
| Profit!!!
|

Well, most anyway. Though there's also a lot of
creativity and risk-taking there, too. (If MS didn't
have their Windows/Office monopolies their risk-taking
would have killed them off long ago. Most of their
new ideas lose money.)

I found the quasi-technical descriptions of PWAs
fascinating. It's Microsoft's twisted twist on the
whole thing, but clearly a lot of bright people have
put a lot of thought into how the Web could be
made more functional. There are some interesting
ideas. Though I suppose it's not as creative as it
should be. It's trying to adapt javascript in webpages
to work like compiled software that lives everywhere.
Not a very bright idea, really. Sort of like trying to
base the airplane on the car.... "We'll just make the
wheels spin *really* fast."

I see much of profit-mania as being connected to
the birth of the IRA. Oddly, no one ever talks about
that change: Before IRAs, few people invested in
the stock market and companies were expected to
take on some social responsibility. Also back then,
news was mostly a public service that TV networks
tried to do well. Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and
David Brinkley were entrusted with the workings of
democracy itself.

Then IRAs happened and Reagan gutted media
regulations. News became Kardashian gossip and
accident reports. It became ironically difficult to
actually find out what's going on in a world awash
in information. And everyone who could afford to started
an IRA. That meant that most people had a vested
interest in the stock market going up. Suddenly those
corporate donations to cancer research or PBS were
coming out of our pockets. We wanted Exxon to clean
up their spilt oil, but did we want to pay, personally,
to shampoo some seagull? Did we want that deducted
from our retirement funds? Exxon was supposed to rake
in bucks, after all, right? We all owned a fraction of the
company for that reason.

So now there are lots of people who say it's the
job of corporations to make profits. They think that's
what capitalism means. And those people don't have
your cynicism. They're saying it as though they
were enumerating the laws of physics. They've
managed to create a separation in their own minds.
Kardashian media helps.

Exxon-Mobil is a good influence, making our money for us.
Oil spills are an unfortunate fact of life. Apple is providing
jobs for poor people in China. Walmart isn't destroying
small business with their megastores. As the self-appointed
genius Thomas Friedman so kindly explained, Walmart
is inevitable. Imperialism and exploitation of 3rd-world
countries you say? Psychological and physical abuse of
employees by Amazon? Nah! That's known as globalism.
It's a natural development caused by communication
improvements. Everyone benefits. .... Leastways, anyone
who's anyone.