"earn what people are willing to pay you, and generally people only pay for things if they get something in return" I'm sorry, no: this is taking some Econ 101

"earn what people are willing to pay you, and generally people only pay for things if they get something in return" I'm sorry, no: this is taking some Econ 101 assumptions about supply and demand curves, and turning them around and claiming them as obvious empirical truths. In my experience, people are also willing to pay whatever other people are willing to pay for something. It's not always rational, and cartels and monopolies are major, perhaps dominant, parts of our economic system.