I imagine they'd go under if they rely on the general public as their customer base. Companies that cater to the wealthy would probably grow. Companies are created and go bankrupt all the time, individuals in the owner class will win or lose but that won't affect the broad distribution of power. If it gets really bad feudalism might come back.
Companies catering to the wealthy is already happening. The richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault, sells luxury goods. It used to be that selling products to the most amount of people was better, Ford, oil barrons, even Wal-Mart. Now money is made selling products to the wealthy. The growth in inequality of the last 50 years shows up in many ways today. Housing sizes are larger because builders need to sell to the wealthy instead of to the masses where margins on modest sized homes are smaller or non-existent.
Make shittier products under shittier conditions to keep slaves barely-alive. Use slaves. Reap shiny.
Currency will still be used. Unless everyone starts to absolutely own nothing, there will be bartering with something other than a fancy note with a promise of value from your local government. For example, food has been a staple currency for as long as agriculture has been a thing.
Based on what I'm seeing in the small business community around me...
Small businesses see less foot traffic, take out loans to survive, realize things aren't picking back up due to a drop in general spending, a drop that businesses like this can't weather but mega corps can
Small businesses close, go bankrupt, etc.
Eventually only mega corps left, it'll become the only option to do or buy anything, and we're all fucked
edit: At some point I hope we all realize we could stop fighting each other, have power in numbers, and eat the rich.
the poor people will have given all of their money to the companies.
And then rich people will simply have all of the money.
But then what
History repeating itself..
we have no money, we fucking die.
They will target wealthy people.
They might be able to produce things with automation and AI and only sustain a small lower class to maintain those machines.
This happens to varying levels during most economic crises. Basically it results in contraction of the economy as companies cut expenses, I.e. wages. Usually there is some consolidation so that fewer, stronger firms can survive the downturn.
Then things get better.
Maybe it drives unity?
They might go on fire a bit.
Once the poor people have no money for bread they will feast on richflesh.
The working class are a necessity until full automation is possible, at which point we will be genocided with kill bots. (except for the hottest of us who will remain sex slaves.)
There are a infinite amount of reindeer games the 1% can use to keep us floating precariously on the edge until said time... including UBI. The rules are made up, and fiat currency doesn't matter.
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!