I understand the argument you're making and I can see that way to look at it. It's a useful framing and interpretion. I however see it as the same trend of seeking ever higher profits by shareholders. I don't think shareholder primacy is conpatible with making good product. As a good product is made and sold, profits eventually stagnate as it saturates a market, sharholders demand profit growth, firms often respond by reducing product cost, which typically makes it a worse product. Lots of examples for this process. In effect, for many decades now one could consider profit growth being the primary product of corporations. When I look at the current developments you highlight, I can see manufacturing hype as the next version of this product. It's novel, but I see it as an evolution along the product line that is maximizing shareholder value. I'm not saying this is a better interpretation or anything. To me it makes sense but I'd be perfectly happy with yours if I didn't already have an opinion on this and I would have been well informed by yours. 😊

Thanks for the work!

I wonder how much this is short-term investors being very dominant in the market, and executive compensation being tied to short-term performance, colliding?

If minimum holding times for a stock position were implemented (e.g. can't sell for 2 years), or if executives were compensated based on e.g. 10 year performance of the company, I feel like this cycle of acquisitions and layoffs and trend/hype-humping would die quickly.