Truth Versus Fiction: IBM's Collapse Due to Money Crunch, Not Slop Disguised as Code

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 27, 2026

The core issue is financial:

Minutes ago:

Hours ago:

Also: "IBM Shares Plummet Amid AI Threat to COBOL Systems"

And a slopfarm citing 'slobthomas' 13 hours ago

There are IBM layoffs reported in Belgium, Netherlands, and basically half the EU. IBM is shrinking and pursuing low-cost labour. It's about cost. The "Davos narrative" will just say "AI AI AI AI", which is a way to distract from a financial framework that is no longer sustainable.

The harsh reality is, for decades already IBM has been bleeding.

But the media wants to tell another story: "AI". It doesn't mean "All Indians", it means slop, or overhyped garbage. We saw this in recent hours in relation to Block [1-3] and we are seeing this in IBM all the time.

The other day we explained why the excuse made by IBM and its apologists made little sense, both because of the timing (the stock fell even before the "COBOL" noise/news) and the substance. Half a day ago someone posted this sensible explanation:

All this shows is that investors really don't understand that a blog post from Anthropic means nothing in the real world.

The folks that fell for this are id--ts.

Converting COBOL to Java or Python does little to help you 'move off the mainframe'. There is so much more involved.

Besides, COBOL runs just fine on x86 hardware. The language isn't the problem.

And for those that say 'nobody knows COBOL anymore'. So, are you saying that modern programmers can't learn another language? Are they really that stupid?

The problem isn't the language.

And remember, people can write new trash code in any language. And they can do new cr-ppy design and cr-ppy documentation. And they can job hop and leave a company with nobody knowing how the companies code works.

This is all just ridiculous.

In 20-30 years in the future the conversation is going to be - is your code really written in that cr-ppy old Rust language and running on that cr-ppy old AWS platform? Get with the times and move to blah blah language and blah blah platform!

In a nutshell, quantity does not mean quality and, at least when it comes to slop, it's always all about quantity, even if overwhelming quantity becomes a chore (later) for human beings and therefore slows operations down. Slop is a liability. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Jack Dorsey's Block cuts thousands of jobs as it embraces AI [Ed: Nothing to do with "AI"; BillBC playing along with Microsoft's propaganda narrative.]

   Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey says his technology firm Block is laying off almost half its workforce because artificial intelligence (AI) "fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company."

   "Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes," he wrote in a letter to shareholders, external.

2. Block lays off nearly half its staff because of AI. Its CEO said most companies will do the same [Ed: Nothing to do with "AI", but they go along with this excuse]

3. AI drives massive layoffs at Jack Dorsey's Block; 4,000 jobs cut [Ed: This company fails, nothing to do with "AI"]