Eh, when something goes extinct I'd say that's evidence that it isn't viable. That's the paradox of capitalism: anything that can be ruined eventually will be. I'd pay 2x or 3x for 30yr appliances for environmental reasons, but I don't think the company that makes such a thing could raise the capital to build them in the first place.
> when something goes extinct I'd say that's evidence that it isn't viable.
It depends on the thing, but in general I don't think that assumption is terribly valid. The problem is that "viable" and "maximally profitable" are two different things. Companies have decided to chase the latter exclusively -- but that's a choice to satisfy short-term greed, it's not a reflection on what a viable business has to look like.
I think it's more reflective of how much the exercise of capitalism has degraded since those times.
I don't think choice is involved here, public and capital-financed companies that aren't maximally greedy get eaten by those that are. When your competitors raise enough capital to undercut you in the short term, you don't survive to the long term unless you raise more capital as well, and you can't both offer the highest returns, one of you is going to end up buying the other, and only after all the corners have been cut and every customer that can be screwed has been screwed. It's a race to the bottom that doesn't necessarily have a solution. Isn't this essentially how Maytag went tits up? To compete with the cheap foreign appliances they took on a bunch of debt, and then cut costs to service the debt, resulting in the "amanatags" that destroyed the reputation for quality they'd built over 3-4 generations?
