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You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be co

You know what else takes jobs away? Free. Free apps. Free website. Free TV shows. Free movies. Free music. Free video games. The customers start to be conditioned to the word 'free', and slowly refuses to pay for anything in those categories. The cumulative market shrinks as result, leading to more companies shutting down and more layoffs. Oh, but there's advertising, one say. And there's the unlimited amount of venture capital funding these 'free' companies. Well, if we keep losing jobs in valuable sectors because we keep giving things away for free, how will people pay for products that will sustain advertising budgets in those companies? Will we just keep selling advertising to each other? And at a certain point in the economy, consumer is more conscious about price than brand (like now), in which case advertising will start to falter. So the next time you give away products for free, you should think about whether or not it'll cause you to lose your company/job in the future.

flipbrad 15y ago
at the same time, you're describing an economy generating a whole lot of wellbeing and welfare. Unemployment and redundancy are dirty words, but if part of a stable economy generating what we need, perhaps we should reconceptualise redundancy as a good thing? Individuals have always wanted robots doing our chores so they have more time with our families. Can't society think the same way?
- chailatte 15y ago
  Perhaps in a perfect world, we won't need jobs or money. But in our current state/world, we (everyone in the world) still need jobs and money for limited resources to survive like energy, clean water, food, stable infrastructure, materials and people's time. And everybody is competing for those right now, hence worldwide inflation and companies/governments reducing jobs to stay afloat.
rubiety 15y ago
Yet another absolutely classic example of both the "lump of labor fallacy" and "make work bias". When are we going to starting teaching more Economics and less Literature in high school?
- chailatte 15y ago
  That's true. We should also teach how to present a valid, explanatory counterargument instead of thoughtless one liner.
  - rubiety 15y ago
    Wow, you should be embarrassed. Read the rest of the comments and see my real reply to the original article - posted 10 minutes before yours. It's also hilarious that this comment commits the very fallacy you seek to expose!
    - chailatte 15y ago
      Your reply was regarding efficiency. My reply has to do with free. Let me put it in an example. Electric cars are more efficient than gas vehicles. So consumers switch to electric cars. Those workers whose jobs were rendered useless transitioned into higher knowledge jobs in the electric cars industry. There might be more jobs in the new industry. And customers will likely pay the same amount for the new electric cars (IMPORTANT: demand, the willingness to pay for said utility, still exists). So net loss is neglible. As for the oil/gas industry, the consumer pays for less oil/gas for their cars, so the oil/gas industry switches market to focus on other utilities for their oil/gas. On the other hand, if the electric cars were free !? People would not have to buy cars ever anymore. Therefore an existing market was destroyed. But I don't have to explain this to you, you spent lots of money on your economic classes!
      - robertpateii 15y ago
        In theory, all those jobless people would now also not need to buy cars and could spend the savings on learning a how to do the new jobs created by all that extra money that's being spent on stuff besides cars. In reality, changing careers is hard. Fortunately the government supports this some with low-interest loans, unemployment benefits, etc. Yet evidently it's not enough.
      - rubiety 15y ago
rubiety 15y ago
All the more ironic that the next item in my feed reader is, "The Problem Began When the Invention of the Spear Reduced the Price of Food": http://cafehayek.com/2011/05/the-problem-began-when-the-invention-of-the-spear-reduced-the-price-of-food.html http://cafehayek.com/2011/05/the-problem-began-when-the-inve... How fitting to this discussion.

flipbrad 15y ago

at the same time, you're describing an economy generating a whole lot of wellbeing and welfare. Unemployment and redundancy are dirty words, but if part of a stable economy generating what we need, perhaps we should reconceptualise redundancy as a good thing? Individuals have always wanted robots doing our chores so they have more time with our families. Can't society think the same way?

chailatte 15y ago
Perhaps in a perfect world, we won't need jobs or money. But in our current state/world, we (everyone in the world) still need jobs and money for limited resources to survive like energy, clean water, food, stable infrastructure, materials and people's time. And everybody is competing for those right now, hence worldwide inflation and companies/governments reducing jobs to stay afloat.

rubiety 15y ago

Yet another absolutely classic example of both the "lump of labor fallacy" and "make work bias". When are we going to starting teaching more Economics and less Literature in high school?

chailatte 15y ago
That's true. We should also teach how to present a valid, explanatory counterargument instead of thoughtless one liner.
- rubiety 15y ago
  Wow, you should be embarrassed. Read the rest of the comments and see my real reply to the original article - posted 10 minutes before yours. It's also hilarious that this comment commits the very fallacy you seek to expose!
  - chailatte 15y ago
    Your reply was regarding efficiency. My reply has to do with free. Let me put it in an example. Electric cars are more efficient than gas vehicles. So consumers switch to electric cars. Those workers whose jobs were rendered useless transitioned into higher knowledge jobs in the electric cars industry. There might be more jobs in the new industry. And customers will likely pay the same amount for the new electric cars (IMPORTANT: demand, the willingness to pay for said utility, still exists). So net loss is neglible. As for the oil/gas industry, the consumer pays for less oil/gas for their cars, so the oil/gas industry switches market to focus on other utilities for their oil/gas. On the other hand, if the electric cars were free !? People would not have to buy cars ever anymore. Therefore an existing market was destroyed. But I don't have to explain this to you, you spent lots of money on your economic classes!
    - robertpateii 15y ago
      In theory, all those jobless people would now also not need to buy cars and could spend the savings on learning a how to do the new jobs created by all that extra money that's being spent on stuff besides cars. In reality, changing careers is hard. Fortunately the government supports this some with low-interest loans, unemployment benefits, etc. Yet evidently it's not enough.
    - rubiety 15y ago

rubiety 15y ago

All the more ironic that the next item in my feed reader is, "The Problem Began When the Invention of the Spear Reduced the Price of Food": http://cafehayek.com/2011/05/the-problem-began-when-the-invention-of-the-spear-reduced-the-price-of-food.html http://cafehayek.com/2011/05/the-problem-began-when-the-inve... How fitting to this discussion.