If you're not the shareholder, you're the product.

The business model of any publicly traded corporation, at least in 2025, is to increase the value of its circulating stock. No more and no less. The nominal business model of the company is a cover story to make line go up. The reason why the stock price matters is because of access to capital markets: if a business wants to buy another business, they are not going to dip into the cash on hand. They are going to take out a loan, and that loan is collateralized by... the value of the business. Which is determined by the stock price.

So if you can keep the line going up, you can keep buying competitors. But if you act like a normal, mature business, you can't.

Profit as a concept is a concern for capitalism. But these businesses are not interested in capitalism, they're angling to become the new lords of a growing feudal economy. That's what "going meta" really means.