The internet is a machine for hyper-powering competition, which oppresses us all. Traditional work values of community, responsibility, and mutual care between employee and employer are totally thrown out the window.
The internet allows everyone to compete with everyone else on the planet. At first this might be fun and interesting as a consumer, because you get access to so many more goods and media. But for workers this is awful.
In an environment of hyper-competition, there needs to be metrics. The software-ization of everything has created a huge number of ways to measure and rank people. Clicks, views, likes, upvotes, subscribers, followers, swipes, whatever you want. A single number that shows your value. This is Marxist alienation at its finest.
The above metrics are common for social media, but the same is happening in all aspects of work. Ecommerce is all about clicks and views and funnels. Gig work is all about reviews and stars and ratings. Restaurants are all about reviews and stars and paying huge fees to delivery apps and sucking up to “influencers”. Healthcare is all about overbilling as much as possible. Want to be an artist of any kind? Then you better get all your socials up and running and spam all of them 24/7 to “build an audience.”
Hiring in traditional jobs is automated now anyway. Bots are reading and throwing out resumes based on how well it accords with some made up standard of perfection. Performance reviews are automated too. Oh and by the way, you better stay sharp because there's someone in India who can work twice as long as you for a tenth of your salary.
And if you, as a worker, can't catch up? Tough luck. Git gud, noob. What, are you asking for handouts? Just work harder. Nothing wrong with the system at all, oh no, it's just your own problem. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Just get those numbers up, it's easy. Buy these guides and courses and they'll explain how to master SEO, dropshipping, crypto trading, amazon marketplace, social media marketing, email marketing, onlyfans. If I can make it, you can too! The whole internet is turning into bullshit artists selling to other bullshit artists.
Work in a bigger company? Well then the only goal is to increase shareholder value. Even if that means mass layoffs, jacking up prices, or even accounting tricks like stock buybacks, or outright fraud. The only thing that matters is the share price. Just get that up, up, up!
There is no dignity in work anymore. Everything is reduced to numbers. Everything in the name of efficiency. More, more, more, all the time. More dollars spent on total garbage. More clicks and views of mindless, purposeless, idiotic content. The chase is on. Everyone must chase numbers. All life is reduced to a chase of numbers.
Even unionized jobs are disappearing. The current hollywood strikes are going nowhere. The production companies truly don't need as many actors and writers as they used to, so the production companies are not relenting. If the unions demand too much? Fuck them, we'll just automate it with robots and AI. It'll be way cheaper, we don't need humans anyway.
Where does it lead? More FOMO, more burnout, more depression, more poverty. Moral and spiritual poverty. A pointless life. The entire system is sick. A whole system that pits people against each other, to squeeze everyone for as much as they are possibly worth, as much as they can possibly work. All just to juice some numbers which a few people can them skim off of.
There are fewer and fewer places to resist this tidal wave. Communes, homesteading, perhaps working in trades. Maybe government or public school teaching. Maybe churches and religious communities, but those aren't for everyone.
Work is dead, and the internet killed it.