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That's probably 90% true, but there are phenomena that defy this. Imagine you live in a society where the population is mainly composed of two segments. Membe

That's probably 90% true, but there are phenomena that defy this. Imagine you live in a society where the population is mainly composed of two segments. Members of the first segment enjoy consuming service A. Members of the second segment would benefit tremendously from service B, but all the money is held by the first segment. Which service are you going to spend your time offering to the public? This is at least part of the reason that, as a software engineer, I am much better off selling my time to an advertising company than (say) running a programming/compsci dojo for middle school kids in a low-income urban community. You'll say, of course, that advertising is so lucrative because businesses around the world (and therefore the society made up of them) value the extra income that advertising provides. You'll say that society as a whole does, in fact, want more, better advertisements. But I suspect that there is a segment of the population just as large that would rather everyone in the advertising industry do something else. Only that segment can't pay.

Chris2048 11y ago
> selling my time to an advertising company than (say) running a programming/compsci dojo for middle school kids There are lucrative teaching jobs, and lucrative consumer products bought by low-income communities. But in this case, teaching dojos don't scale the same way ads do. Also, high-income communities can often incubate products that eventually become available to low-income communities, after they get over initial cost burdens. Advertising is a good example though: If everyone uses ads, there is no individual (company) advantage to using ads, but you still have to use them to compete.
- mac01021 11y ago
  At the risk of hurting my case, advertising is probably not quite as good an example as you're making it out to be. In particular, competition between two brands of the same product need not be a zero sum game. If every beer company runs ads in which beautiful women fawn over a guy drinking beer, the outcome might be that every company sees higher profits than in a world without any ads at all.
golemotron 11y ago
> You'll say, of course, that advertising is so lucrative because businesses around the world (and therefore the society made up of them) value the extra income that advertising provides. You'll say that society as a whole does, in fact, want more, better advertisements. But I suspect that there is a segment of the population just as large that would rather everyone in the advertising industry do something else. Only that segment can't pay. Allow yourself the recursion. They could pay if we valued their work more. Every job is on the market.

Chris2048 11y ago

> selling my time to an advertising company than (say) running a programming/compsci dojo for middle school kids There are lucrative teaching jobs, and lucrative consumer products bought by low-income communities. But in this case, teaching dojos don't scale the same way ads do. Also, high-income communities can often incubate products that eventually become available to low-income communities, after they get over initial cost burdens. Advertising is a good example though: If everyone uses ads, there is no individual (company) advantage to using ads, but you still have to use them to compete.

mac01021 11y ago
At the risk of hurting my case, advertising is probably not quite as good an example as you're making it out to be. In particular, competition between two brands of the same product need not be a zero sum game. If every beer company runs ads in which beautiful women fawn over a guy drinking beer, the outcome might be that every company sees higher profits than in a world without any ads at all.

golemotron 11y ago

> You'll say, of course, that advertising is so lucrative because businesses around the world (and therefore the society made up of them) value the extra income that advertising provides. You'll say that society as a whole does, in fact, want more, better advertisements. But I suspect that there is a segment of the population just as large that would rather everyone in the advertising industry do something else. Only that segment can't pay. Allow yourself the recursion. They could pay if we valued their work more. Every job is on the market.