6 ms·

How exactly did, say, J. K. Rowling (wrote Harry Potter) or Notch (created Minecraft) step on someone's neck? You can become a billionaire by producing somethi

How exactly did, say, J. K. Rowling (wrote Harry Potter) or Notch (created Minecraft) step on someone's neck? You can become a billionaire by producing something that tens of millions of people appreciate (and by being extremely lucky I guess). Elites existing are not a sign of people getting screwed. The poor being so worse off they literally cannot afford food, on the other hand, _is_ a sign of people getting screwed. The economy is not a zero-sum game.

mulmen 9y ago
I'm not making the argument that the economy is a zero sum game. I'm saying we don't allocate wealth properly. My concept of the "elite" is based on them having so much more than the poor. With more equal income distribution there would be no "elites". Of course there will always be people with more and less but that doesn't mean we need the elite for the economy to work or that its healthy to load so much of our collective wealth to the top. For example: good for Rowling but why aren't more authors able to make a living writing? In my opinion the fact that it's possible to win the economic lottery like Rowling or Notch is a symptom of a greater problem.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Because their books don't address a wide enough audience? You can write an amazing horror thriller book about zombies, but the total addressable audience will be smaller than a well written fantasy book that can be read by someone ranging from 13 to 75. As an example: artists often have this feeling that they need to stay "pure" to their air to make it. Yet, the best artists that often "make it" are actually businesspeople first and artists second. They will think about creating art that can and will sell. Second to this is the fact that money generally ends up making more money. If I have $10m in the bank (a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things and looking at how much money goes around in the world), then on average, if invested properly, this should generate you about $1m in capital gains per year. Most people don't spend a million a year. Add to that any income you might be making from whatever you're doing (entrepreneurial stuff, etc) and it's generally very hard to drop out of the elite once you're there.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    You're simultaneously missing and making my point. Sure Rowling wrote a great book and the economic gods smiled on her and we got a new pop culture staple. But what about the authors of other books that are similar but made orders of magnitude less money? Does it make sense that there is such a gap? Is everyone involved being fairly compensated? Even the people running the printing presses and delivering the books? Is it beneficial that "money makes money" without the promised trickle down effects to the middle class? Why is it possible to make a million dollars in a year with 10 million (10%!) but not just as easy to make say $100.00 with $1000.00? If $10,000,000.00 is such a small sum why will the overwhelming majority of people never see that amount of money in their lifetimes? Yes it is hard to drop out of the elite, because they're keeping the wealth, they can't even help it. This is the neck stepping I referred to.
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      On the first matter. Yes, it makes perfect sense. Her books are superb, and very well written. The story flows great. She is an excellent writer _AND_ great at marketing. Nothing ever stands alone and you generally need help from other people to achieve things. Her story is rags to riches -- if she can do it, literally anyone can do it. Was luck involved? Of course, to some extent. But hang out with the right people and you would be surprised at how much is possible in life. There is a reason why success often seems contagious. On the second part: it's an effect from a capitalistic society. In fact, you can easily achieve the same returns (even higher) with lower capital. It's just that the outcome matters less: you can't live off of $100. Have an open mind. $10m is literally one good idea away. Invested in Bitcoin in 2011? There you go. Made a great app in 2007? Maybe not $10m, but at least a few. Etc. Opportunities pop up all over the place -- most people are just not looking and too busy working a job and living life. Literally everyone can make millions, IF that is what they desire and want to achieve in life. You just have to work towards it. Is it easy? Hell no. Should it be easy? Hell no. Last: the elite isn't really keeping the wealth. They obviously won't just give it to you, but there are plenty of opportunities for people with good ideas but no money to team up with people who do have the money, and make something happen. And most will gladly share the gain.
- Crespyl 9y ago
  Most authors do not write books that are as desirable as Harry Potter. Most developers do not make games that are as accessible or extensible as Minecraft. Would your ideal system deny them the rewards of creating something massively successful?
  - mulmen 9y ago
    No my ideal system would allow more people to create things that are massively successful.
    - hutzlibu 9y ago
      How?
- googletazer 9y ago
  >For example: good for Rowling but why aren't more authors able to make a living writing? Because consumers don't like them as much. The market increasingly is a winner take all, moving away from the 20%-80% split. How many books did you buy this year? How many were from indie/unknown authors?
  - mulmen 9y ago
    You're missing the forest for the trees. We provide huge rewards to a small number of people but why? Yes, consumers don't like them as much but if that means some people starve and others make billions maybe that's a problem with our socioeconomic system?
    - TimPC 9y ago
      Problem relative to what other system. As far as systems that exist, Democratic capitalism with a social safety net has produced less starvation per capita than any other socioeconomic system that has actually existed. Most stories of people attempting to implement a hand-wavey utopia have results where the human dead measure in millions. At this point theoretical Utopia's meet the standard of extraordinary claims, and consequently they require extraordinary evidence. How does this alternate system of yours work? Can people read what they want to read? Can people work where they want to work? Do companies get revenues based on how successful their products are? If all three of those things are true your premise is basically violated as far as I can tell. I don't like breaking any of those 3 things as I see the first 2 as fundamental rights and the third as the main successful way to reward creating actual value for real humans.
      - mulmen 9y ago
        So I guess we can abolish congress then? Democracy contains a fundamental assumption that society is continually evolving. You're putting a lot of words in my mouth here. I don't think our current system is perfect, that does not mean I want to institute a dystopian centrally managed society. It means I understand the basic concepts of democracy, and nuance. I don't think our current levels of wealth inequality are healthy or sustainable. Personally I'd like to see a wealth tax where you pay for the portion of the national economy you hold.
- crazy1van 9y ago
  "I'm saying we don't allocate wealth properly" But wealth isn't really "allocated". To use the previous examples of Rowling and Notch, no one allocated millions of consumers to buy their product. Millions of individuals decided to freely spend their own money on Harry Potter and Minecraft.
- nostrademons 9y ago
  I think that "information cascades" is the concept you're looking for. J.K. Rowling made hundreds of millions because hundreds of millions of people bought her book. Why did hundreds of millions of people buy her book while most authors struggle to get tens of thousands? Mostly because people recommended it to their friends, and their kids all passed it around school, and news stories got written about it, and major motion pictures came out, and it became a cultural phenomena where Harry Potter references snuck into every corner of life. Look at any other billionaire and you see a similar story. Minecraft got huge because everyone was like "Yeah, I totally wasted a week playing Minecraft. No regrets" and so everyone checked it out. Facebook got huge because everyone was like "Are you on Facebook? Here, I'll friend you." Ditto LinkedIn and Whatsapp and every other social network. Uber got there because at parties people would casually say "Oh, I'll just Uber home." Google got big because people would be like "Just fucking Google it" instead of telling you the information. Basically, when you can get your customers to do your marketing for you, you rapidly expand into the whole set of potential customers, which numbers in the billions. Provide just $1 of value to them and you're a billionaire. Most business owners and employees, by contrast, are forced to explain why it's worth giving money to them, which is a process that doesn't scale. Then you're forced to only deal with customers who will pay you more than it costs to convince them to fork over that money. The way you can break this cycle and eliminate this inequality is to convince people to make their own damn consumption decisions and ignore what their friends say. Good luck on that.
  - taneq 9y ago
    You've basically just defined "went viral".
    - nostrademons 9y ago
      Yep, exactly. Virality as we think of it on the Internet is just a specific form of information cascade, along with word of mouth advertising, financial bubbles, fashion, social proof, populist movements, etc.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    I don’t have a problem with this cycle. I just don’t think everyone wins when someone wins this lottery. Some people receive far more reward than others even though they were all involved. This doesn’t mean J.K. Rowling wrote a bad book or doesn’t deserve the money. That is a apparently very distracting example that misses the actual point. I’m saying that when a person makes billions (read: lots) of dollars in a society that has people starving to death or otherwise unable to meet their basic needs then there is some exploitation happening somewhere. The economic rewards of that work are larger than the individuals contribution, someone is getting screwed.
grawprog 9y ago
Well I don't know about J.K. Rowling but Notch kind of stepped on all the players that supported the game during alpha when he sold it to Microsoft. When I purchased the game back at alpha 0.5 or something, I was paying for any future uprades and such according to the user agreement I accepted. Once Microsoft bought it and rewrote it, that agreement no longer applies to these new supported versions of the game, only the Java version. It is what it is but it does irk me a bit to have to pay again for something I bought with the understanding that I was paying for all future upgrades.
- Crespyl 9y ago
  It could be argued that the new "improved" rewrite versions are strictly downgrades compared to the extensibility of the original.
  - grawprog 9y ago
    Ya I looked into them a bit and couldn't really be bothered. I also don't have a windows computer or any modern consoles so I'm stuck on the Java one either way. The whole thing just seems like a sneaky way to make more money off of it ans have tighter control over the community.
watwut 9y ago
Bot won jackpot in largely winner takes all industry. There cant be possibly thousands Rowling or Notches worldwide. There can be three at a time in each category. And most often, there is none. Both were good I what they did. In both cases, there were plenty of writers or devs that were good, worked hard, created something good and did not won that jackpot. Neither of them influences politics enough to be considered elite in the parent meaning. Both are just someome with a lot of money and a little influence. They don't fund think-tanks to push for favorable tax policy nor know how to do it nor have enough money to do it.
smt88 9y ago
Most billionaires are neither Notch nor JKR. Those are certainly distant outliers. Most billionaires started with huge advantages conferred at birth and/or required large organizations of under-compensated people to get their billions.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  It's probably not a popular opinion, but what is undercompensation? If I can employ 10,000 people at $X to achieve goal Y, and those 10,000 people are fine with said agreement and willing to work at said rate, then I am not undercompensating them. Then you are paying them market rate. Now, this might not be much above minimum wage and it might seem outrageously cheap. But you're not undercompensating them if you can find the people.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    I think that's a bit of an oversimplification. It may be possible to find people willing to do that work at that price because those people are desperate. This type of thinking is why market forces alone cannot sustain a middle class.
  - itchyouch 9y ago
    Market rate == value, not fair or unfair compensation (from the wager earner perspective). If the value generated from work is less than minimum wage, it may not be that fair to the business, but usually those types of unfair scenarios are corrected. Fairness in compensation for an individual revolves around a livable wage. Of course, “livable” is highly debatable. Should livable compensation be enough to be able to save? Does it include being able to afford a home in a safe neighborhood? What is safe?
  - lsc 9y ago
    The argument comes down to the fact that the market is organized by and for the owners of capital, and that is largely a group you are born into. If you don't control capital, you participate in the market as a commodity. Functionally, we've got a two-tiered system, and transitioning between those tiers is quite difficult. Most of us here on hn are at least very expensive commodities, which isn't quite the same as being a capital owner, but it's a lot more comfortable and a lot more free than being an inexpensive commodity, the leasing of which often cannot cover operating expenses. I personally have spent some time operating as a small time owner of capital... and I should write more about that; Experimentally, I personally am better off as an expensive commodity, precisely because it's quite difficult to make that jump from commodity to capitalist. I wasn't good enough to make it. I can see how if I were a little smarter, a lot more disciplined, if I had more luck or sense, I might have made the jump. but I'm... not average in a whole lot of ways. The average person is going to have a much harder time of it than I did.
taneq 9y ago
You still need to make something that tens of millions of people will sped at least $100 on. And that's just to gross $1 billion.

mulmen 9y ago

I'm not making the argument that the economy is a zero sum game. I'm saying we don't allocate wealth properly. My concept of the "elite" is based on them having so much more than the poor. With more equal income distribution there would be no "elites". Of course there will always be people with more and less but that doesn't mean we need the elite for the economy to work or that its healthy to load so much of our collective wealth to the top. For example: good for Rowling but why aren't more authors able to make a living writing? In my opinion the fact that it's possible to win the economic lottery like Rowling or Notch is a symptom of a greater problem.

charlesdm 9y ago
Because their books don't address a wide enough audience? You can write an amazing horror thriller book about zombies, but the total addressable audience will be smaller than a well written fantasy book that can be read by someone ranging from 13 to 75. As an example: artists often have this feeling that they need to stay "pure" to their air to make it. Yet, the best artists that often "make it" are actually businesspeople first and artists second. They will think about creating art that can and will sell. Second to this is the fact that money generally ends up making more money. If I have $10m in the bank (a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things and looking at how much money goes around in the world), then on average, if invested properly, this should generate you about $1m in capital gains per year. Most people don't spend a million a year. Add to that any income you might be making from whatever you're doing (entrepreneurial stuff, etc) and it's generally very hard to drop out of the elite once you're there.
- mulmen 9y ago
  You're simultaneously missing and making my point. Sure Rowling wrote a great book and the economic gods smiled on her and we got a new pop culture staple. But what about the authors of other books that are similar but made orders of magnitude less money? Does it make sense that there is such a gap? Is everyone involved being fairly compensated? Even the people running the printing presses and delivering the books? Is it beneficial that "money makes money" without the promised trickle down effects to the middle class? Why is it possible to make a million dollars in a year with 10 million (10%!) but not just as easy to make say $100.00 with $1000.00? If $10,000,000.00 is such a small sum why will the overwhelming majority of people never see that amount of money in their lifetimes? Yes it is hard to drop out of the elite, because they're keeping the wealth, they can't even help it. This is the neck stepping I referred to.
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    On the first matter. Yes, it makes perfect sense. Her books are superb, and very well written. The story flows great. She is an excellent writer _AND_ great at marketing. Nothing ever stands alone and you generally need help from other people to achieve things. Her story is rags to riches -- if she can do it, literally anyone can do it. Was luck involved? Of course, to some extent. But hang out with the right people and you would be surprised at how much is possible in life. There is a reason why success often seems contagious. On the second part: it's an effect from a capitalistic society. In fact, you can easily achieve the same returns (even higher) with lower capital. It's just that the outcome matters less: you can't live off of $100. Have an open mind. $10m is literally one good idea away. Invested in Bitcoin in 2011? There you go. Made a great app in 2007? Maybe not $10m, but at least a few. Etc. Opportunities pop up all over the place -- most people are just not looking and too busy working a job and living life. Literally everyone can make millions, IF that is what they desire and want to achieve in life. You just have to work towards it. Is it easy? Hell no. Should it be easy? Hell no. Last: the elite isn't really keeping the wealth. They obviously won't just give it to you, but there are plenty of opportunities for people with good ideas but no money to team up with people who do have the money, and make something happen. And most will gladly share the gain.
Crespyl 9y ago
Most authors do not write books that are as desirable as Harry Potter. Most developers do not make games that are as accessible or extensible as Minecraft. Would your ideal system deny them the rewards of creating something massively successful?
- mulmen 9y ago
  No my ideal system would allow more people to create things that are massively successful.
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    How?
googletazer 9y ago
>For example: good for Rowling but why aren't more authors able to make a living writing? Because consumers don't like them as much. The market increasingly is a winner take all, moving away from the 20%-80% split. How many books did you buy this year? How many were from indie/unknown authors?
- mulmen 9y ago
  You're missing the forest for the trees. We provide huge rewards to a small number of people but why? Yes, consumers don't like them as much but if that means some people starve and others make billions maybe that's a problem with our socioeconomic system?
  - TimPC 9y ago
    Problem relative to what other system. As far as systems that exist, Democratic capitalism with a social safety net has produced less starvation per capita than any other socioeconomic system that has actually existed. Most stories of people attempting to implement a hand-wavey utopia have results where the human dead measure in millions. At this point theoretical Utopia's meet the standard of extraordinary claims, and consequently they require extraordinary evidence. How does this alternate system of yours work? Can people read what they want to read? Can people work where they want to work? Do companies get revenues based on how successful their products are? If all three of those things are true your premise is basically violated as far as I can tell. I don't like breaking any of those 3 things as I see the first 2 as fundamental rights and the third as the main successful way to reward creating actual value for real humans.
    - mulmen 9y ago
      So I guess we can abolish congress then? Democracy contains a fundamental assumption that society is continually evolving. You're putting a lot of words in my mouth here. I don't think our current system is perfect, that does not mean I want to institute a dystopian centrally managed society. It means I understand the basic concepts of democracy, and nuance. I don't think our current levels of wealth inequality are healthy or sustainable. Personally I'd like to see a wealth tax where you pay for the portion of the national economy you hold.
crazy1van 9y ago
"I'm saying we don't allocate wealth properly" But wealth isn't really "allocated". To use the previous examples of Rowling and Notch, no one allocated millions of consumers to buy their product. Millions of individuals decided to freely spend their own money on Harry Potter and Minecraft.
nostrademons 9y ago
I think that "information cascades" is the concept you're looking for. J.K. Rowling made hundreds of millions because hundreds of millions of people bought her book. Why did hundreds of millions of people buy her book while most authors struggle to get tens of thousands? Mostly because people recommended it to their friends, and their kids all passed it around school, and news stories got written about it, and major motion pictures came out, and it became a cultural phenomena where Harry Potter references snuck into every corner of life. Look at any other billionaire and you see a similar story. Minecraft got huge because everyone was like "Yeah, I totally wasted a week playing Minecraft. No regrets" and so everyone checked it out. Facebook got huge because everyone was like "Are you on Facebook? Here, I'll friend you." Ditto LinkedIn and Whatsapp and every other social network. Uber got there because at parties people would casually say "Oh, I'll just Uber home." Google got big because people would be like "Just fucking Google it" instead of telling you the information. Basically, when you can get your customers to do your marketing for you, you rapidly expand into the whole set of potential customers, which numbers in the billions. Provide just $1 of value to them and you're a billionaire. Most business owners and employees, by contrast, are forced to explain why it's worth giving money to them, which is a process that doesn't scale. Then you're forced to only deal with customers who will pay you more than it costs to convince them to fork over that money. The way you can break this cycle and eliminate this inequality is to convince people to make their own damn consumption decisions and ignore what their friends say. Good luck on that.
- taneq 9y ago
  You've basically just defined "went viral".
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    Yep, exactly. Virality as we think of it on the Internet is just a specific form of information cascade, along with word of mouth advertising, financial bubbles, fashion, social proof, populist movements, etc.
- mulmen 9y ago
  I don’t have a problem with this cycle. I just don’t think everyone wins when someone wins this lottery. Some people receive far more reward than others even though they were all involved. This doesn’t mean J.K. Rowling wrote a bad book or doesn’t deserve the money. That is a apparently very distracting example that misses the actual point. I’m saying that when a person makes billions (read: lots) of dollars in a society that has people starving to death or otherwise unable to meet their basic needs then there is some exploitation happening somewhere. The economic rewards of that work are larger than the individuals contribution, someone is getting screwed.

grawprog 9y ago

Well I don't know about J.K. Rowling but Notch kind of stepped on all the players that supported the game during alpha when he sold it to Microsoft. When I purchased the game back at alpha 0.5 or something, I was paying for any future uprades and such according to the user agreement I accepted. Once Microsoft bought it and rewrote it, that agreement no longer applies to these new supported versions of the game, only the Java version. It is what it is but it does irk me a bit to have to pay again for something I bought with the understanding that I was paying for all future upgrades.

Crespyl 9y ago
It could be argued that the new "improved" rewrite versions are strictly downgrades compared to the extensibility of the original.
- grawprog 9y ago
  Ya I looked into them a bit and couldn't really be bothered. I also don't have a windows computer or any modern consoles so I'm stuck on the Java one either way. The whole thing just seems like a sneaky way to make more money off of it ans have tighter control over the community.

watwut 9y ago

Bot won jackpot in largely winner takes all industry. There cant be possibly thousands Rowling or Notches worldwide. There can be three at a time in each category. And most often, there is none. Both were good I what they did. In both cases, there were plenty of writers or devs that were good, worked hard, created something good and did not won that jackpot. Neither of them influences politics enough to be considered elite in the parent meaning. Both are just someome with a lot of money and a little influence. They don't fund think-tanks to push for favorable tax policy nor know how to do it nor have enough money to do it.

smt88 9y ago

Most billionaires are neither Notch nor JKR. Those are certainly distant outliers. Most billionaires started with huge advantages conferred at birth and/or required large organizations of under-compensated people to get their billions.

charlesdm 9y ago
It's probably not a popular opinion, but what is undercompensation? If I can employ 10,000 people at $X to achieve goal Y, and those 10,000 people are fine with said agreement and willing to work at said rate, then I am not undercompensating them. Then you are paying them market rate. Now, this might not be much above minimum wage and it might seem outrageously cheap. But you're not undercompensating them if you can find the people.
- mulmen 9y ago
  I think that's a bit of an oversimplification. It may be possible to find people willing to do that work at that price because those people are desperate. This type of thinking is why market forces alone cannot sustain a middle class.
- itchyouch 9y ago
  Market rate == value, not fair or unfair compensation (from the wager earner perspective). If the value generated from work is less than minimum wage, it may not be that fair to the business, but usually those types of unfair scenarios are corrected. Fairness in compensation for an individual revolves around a livable wage. Of course, “livable” is highly debatable. Should livable compensation be enough to be able to save? Does it include being able to afford a home in a safe neighborhood? What is safe?
- lsc 9y ago
  The argument comes down to the fact that the market is organized by and for the owners of capital, and that is largely a group you are born into. If you don't control capital, you participate in the market as a commodity. Functionally, we've got a two-tiered system, and transitioning between those tiers is quite difficult. Most of us here on hn are at least very expensive commodities, which isn't quite the same as being a capital owner, but it's a lot more comfortable and a lot more free than being an inexpensive commodity, the leasing of which often cannot cover operating expenses. I personally have spent some time operating as a small time owner of capital... and I should write more about that; Experimentally, I personally am better off as an expensive commodity, precisely because it's quite difficult to make that jump from commodity to capitalist. I wasn't good enough to make it. I can see how if I were a little smarter, a lot more disciplined, if I had more luck or sense, I might have made the jump. but I'm... not average in a whole lot of ways. The average person is going to have a much harder time of it than I did.

taneq 9y ago

You still need to make something that tens of millions of people will sped at least $100 on. And that's just to gross $1 billion.