I’m usually baffled whenever companies do a long term face-plant for the sake of short term profit. Really goes to show that what academics like to theorize about capitalism isn’t reflected in reality. Sure the system might work with people interested in long term gains but it very obviously is run by people that want short term gratification and in general just more of whatever they already have. Mostly that means money, because swimming in money still is not enough for these people.

Loot boxes and streaming are the best examples, the companies could have had a thing where they just print money. All they had to do was to moderate themselves a bit and not extort the customer for the last cent. But no, insane amounts of cash flow/profit are not enough, it needs to be ludicrously insane amounts. And after that some more.