I think I may have just skipped a step or not expressed myself very well.
What I’m saying is, I suspect information technology has made classic production companies vastly more efficient and productive. To the point where we can afford to have massive companies like Facebook that are almost entirely based on value capture.
That’s my speculation at least. Your example puts me in a tough spot, in the sense that Louis Vuitton is pretty old and pretty big. I’d have to know more about the company to quibble, and I don’t feel like researching it. I wonder if the proportion of their value that comes from pointless fashion branding was originally smaller. Or if the whole pointless fashion branding segment was originally just smaller itself. But I’m just spitballing.
In the past we also had mercenary companies and the like to capture value without producing much, so I could just be wrong.
