But also, “increasing profits every quarter” is a relatively recent thing. It’s new since the 1980s! In the 1980s, Reagan heavily promoted the economic theories connected with the Chicago school of economics. (“Reaganomics” is basically the Chicago school ideas dumbed down to fit in soundbites.) The Chicago school is, among other things, responsible for such wonders as “all regulation in the marketplace is always bad” “monopoly is good because it’s efficient” and “trickle-down economics.” When those ideas became mainstream, and were adopted wholeheartedly by Wall Street, they spawned the idea that the most important measure of a company was its stock increasing in value. Not how much business it was doing, not how well its customers liked and valued it, not how stable it was for the long-term. Is its stock increasing is the only measure of value.
Prior to that point, a business--even large corporations!--were valued more on how reliable they are. If I invest in this business, will it still be there five, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now? Businesses were good if they were profitable and stable. Increasing profits was wonderful! But they understood that that is not infinitely sustainable, and that if you wanted to maximize long-term profits for individual investors and for the economy as a whole, you did not want flash-in-the-pan trendiness, and you didn’t want a business cannibalizing itself, you wanted a business that was stable and took good care of its customers so they’d keep coming back.