It used to be that major corporations sold tangible, physical products and their success was based on quality and innovation. Now, it seems, they sell electrons and people's desperate desire to get noticed. Between FaceBook and Twitter now, billions of dollars have traded hands based on nothing.
Oh sure, there's some server farms, but the two companies don't make them. There's some intellectual property, but hardly enough to justify the money flowing in. About the only thing of value these company's produce is demographics and advertising traffic. Honestly. They compile vast amounts of voluntary self-exposure and sell it to marketing agencies and security wonks. The rest is just attracting you to ads. It is the complete and utter defeat of substance.
It is telling and depressing. It has come to the point that the two biggest IPOs in the past year were for corporations that are almost completely passive. All they do is provide a platform for individuals to tell each other what they had for dinner. TeeVee started it by providing hours of mind-numbing pablum, but at least it was produced by ostensible professionals in the entertainment and infotainment industries. FarceBook and Twiddle don't even offer that. They provide wads of generally pointless communications among people who minds have been formed by watching TeeVee.
We are soooooo f*&ked.
If humanity survives this period, this era will likely be looked upon as one of the darkest in human history. For all our vaunted technology, we have not achieved anything of lasting value in nearly two generations - the Moon landings being the last. Instead, we have put all our effort into burying ourselves further into the couch seeking that magical moment when we will achieve the Holy Grail of uselessness: doing nothing, receiving everything.
For all the hype and hyperbole, the FarceBook and Twiddle IPOs are some of the saddest commentaries on our society. They are violent glorification of mediocrity. They serve no purpose but to provide grist for the Madison Ave Mill. At some point, though, the party must end because no one will have a producing job that pays enough to buy all the crap being peddled to us using the data we volunteer to FarceBook and Twiddle.
If ever there was a moment to drop to your knees and pray devoutly for the deliverance of Mankind, it was the moment that TWTR hit $50/share. In that instance, we humans confirmed that we are nothing but mind-control slaves who feverishly run after whatever bright babbles are dangled before us. We proved that we, as a group, are incapable of thinking any deeper than a bowl of soup and that our collective IQs were teetering on the edge of zero kelvin.
I once worked for company that installed risers and pipelines to bring oil and gas from offshore wells to onshore refineries. Real hardware that contributed to real energy to run your TeeVee. That IPO launched at $13 and only once came within striking distance of $50, despite having sea-bases worldwide and a fleet of work vessels.
What does TWTR have? A bunch of servers that used to facilitate real work. Now it's the end product. It's like having a human resources department with no company to hire for. It launced at $26 and hit $50 in short order.
Sad, ain't it?
What's worse is imagining buying vapor shares using Bitcoin vapor money. It's all just fog and phantoms.