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I propose a thought experiment. Assume the app was developed in the past five years. Replay the last five years twice, with different circumstances: Once witho

I propose a thought experiment. Assume the app was developed in the past five years. Replay the last five years twice, with different circumstances: Once without the shelf stocker, and once without the programmer. In one case, the increased productivity still appears, in the other, it does not. It seems to me that the person who is required for the addition of the increased productivity caused the increased productivity, while the person who is not required for it did not.

slg 6y ago
If you remove the individual programmer or the individual shelf stocker nothing will change. The company will just get someone else to do the job. If you remove all programmers the shelves will be stocked at a slower rate. If you remove all shelf stockers, the entire system falls apart and no shelves are stocked. It certainly seems like the shelf stockers are more important to this process than the programmers. They still provide value without the programmers but the programmers are entirely dependent on the shelf stockers to provide value. Why do the programmers therefore get to claim the entire surplus in productivity if they are dependent on the shelf stockers for that productivity boost to actually materialize?