4 ms·

I referenced "Crest vs. Colgate" to suggest that quite a bit of marketing is a zero-sum game. If people drink more Pepsi, they'll probably drink less Coke. If

I referenced "Crest vs. Colgate" to suggest that quite a bit of marketing is a zero-sum game. If people drink more Pepsi, they'll probably drink less Coke. If they eat at McDonalds more, they'll probably eat at Burger King less. How much money do these companies waste shifting consumers between equivalent products? I'm not against ad-supported businesses, but I'll bet Google would have made plenty of money off plain old search ads, probably enough to make Gmail free for everyone. If not, they could have charged a few bucks a month, or shown untargeted ads. In any case, they wouldn't have had an enormous database of PII, just waiting to be hacked or mined in more malicious ways when the ad bubble pops (e.g. credit reports, insurance). > There's no "right" thing to work on. Really[1]? We're paying hucksters 5-10x what we're paying teachers now. If that's what the market demands, then the market is twisted. [1] http://www.metrolyrics.com/wernher-von-braun-lyrics-tom-lehrer.html http://www.metrolyrics.com/wernher-von-braun-lyrics-tom-lehr...

manigandham 7y ago
Yes really. There's no rank of value. Go work on what you want to work on. Changing the value of teachers is a good goal and there are plenty of edtech companies being funded so if you care about it then go fix it. I prefer that we all have the freedom that you can actually choose to do that, or not.
- username223 7y ago
  > There's no rank of value. Wow... Thats cormac mccarthy level bleak but at least honest and I hope not to live in the world your labor may bring into being. EdTech is mostly just a scam to siphon public school money to private companies. I'd rather just lobby my school district to pay teachers more.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    It was an example, but you seem to be suggesting that some people have a more worthy cause than others? What's the most "right" thing then and why aren't you working on it already? I assume curing cancer is somewhere on that list? Let us all know when you'll be getting to it.
baselined 7y ago
Anecdotally, my mom worked for P&G when I was growing up and she said the main difference between the brands was which one was on sale, sold more than the other. In a way the price was the biggest reason for selling toothpaste, not marketing.

manigandham 7y ago

Yes really. There's no rank of value. Go work on what you want to work on. Changing the value of teachers is a good goal and there are plenty of edtech companies being funded so if you care about it then go fix it. I prefer that we all have the freedom that you can actually choose to do that, or not.

username223 7y ago
> There's no rank of value. Wow... Thats cormac mccarthy level bleak but at least honest and I hope not to live in the world your labor may bring into being. EdTech is mostly just a scam to siphon public school money to private companies. I'd rather just lobby my school district to pay teachers more.
- manigandham 7y ago
  It was an example, but you seem to be suggesting that some people have a more worthy cause than others? What's the most "right" thing then and why aren't you working on it already? I assume curing cancer is somewhere on that list? Let us all know when you'll be getting to it.

baselined 7y ago

Anecdotally, my mom worked for P&G when I was growing up and she said the main difference between the brands was which one was on sale, sold more than the other. In a way the price was the biggest reason for selling toothpaste, not marketing.