I don't think this is necessarily related to tech (see: banks), its just a trend this year we've seen, and I think I know why.
In my unprofessional observations, I think that faced with declining consumer revenue (or just the mere perception of potential future declining consumer revenue) many CEOs considered schemes to make their stock prices/quarterlies look better regardless. Below are some I can think of from this year that had zero point except to pad accounting numbers for a small period of time.
If successful:
* Netflix's qwikster would have made the stock look better by shedding off the less %profit part.
* HP's considering of ditching their consumer computer division would have made their stock look better for the same reason (corporate customers = more %profit)
* Bank of America's/Wells Fargo debit fees, same reasoning, higher %profit for nothing
* Verizon, same reasoning
All of these would have buffed short term numbers but were panned because either the consumers and the press "caught on", or more accurately, caught on too early.
Part of the blame lies on companies/CEOs thinking very short term. Steve Jobs or John Chambers (long term CEOs) would probably dismiss all of the above out of hand. Part of the blame lies on speculators/investors who turn into doomsayers overnight if every quarter does not look incredible compared to the previous.
I agree completely and would add that the common theme with all these "strategies" is that it is directly related to improving the short term stock price rather than the fundamentals of the businesses.
*The last part of your comment about "Part of the blame lies on companies/CEOs. Part of the blame lies on speculators/investors who turn into doomsayers overnight if every quarter does not look incredible compared to the previous."
is especially true with growth companies where the price to earnings ratio is far above market average. When this happens, they need to continue delivering exponential growth and when they fail to do so, that is when the stock drops considerably.
That being said, equity analysts see growth companies bust every year, year in and year out. Management is rarely presented with the opportunity to be the CEO of a high growth company more than once. (high growth companies are extremely rare, once they stabilize, management usually sticks around for the big paychecks.)
Because these events are rare in CEO's careers, they make blunders thinking they can trick analysts. This rarely occurs, and mainly with fraud rather than business tricks.
I considered banks, but I think the backlash comes down harder on tech companies because we instantly jump to criticizing on social media, and they are more susceptible to it's effects.
Yes I think you are right, it comes down harder on tech companies because of their audience, but that audience (social-media saavy) is growing much wider and more mainstream, and we as consumers are lucky to live in this age where we can actually create a tangible media backlash so early!
Another commentor mentioned Ticketmaster. They were fortunate enough to establish absurd fees before the social media era really took hold.
If social media existed as well as it does today 10 years ago, I do not think we would be paying so much for things like Ticketmaster or cell phone texting precisely because of the backlash we are capable of creating these days.
