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> And that's cool but to a very great degree these often boil down to an exchange of time for money Isn’t that what all business interactions end up being in t

> And that's cool but to a very great degree these often boil down to an exchange of time for money Isn’t that what all business interactions end up being in the end? Yes, it is a treadmill, but life itself is a treadmill. You need to keep feeding and sheltering yourself even though you JUST ate yesterday. I don’t think planning to support yourself indefinitely for a short period of work is a healthy expectation. Do you really think you can provide enough value to the world in a few years to provide for yourself for your entire life? Having to work consistently is the norm, not a treadmill.

zokier 6y ago
> Isn’t that what all business interactions end up being in the end? Only if you ignore capital. Many business interactions revolve around having access to or utilizing capital in some way. Renting and financing maybe the most obvious examples, but plenty of others too. The key question is that can/should software be considered such capital asset? It being intellectual (or "imaginary" as some pundits put it), and not tangible, property.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Certainly one obvious example is that, given sufficient capital, I can give it to a wealth management person at a brokerage, give them some guidelines, and pretty much sit back. You can also become a silent partner in some business where you collect a skim of the profits while someone(s) else do the work to make sure the business continues to produce profits. I was answering the vein of someone who wants to put in a largely one-shot investment of time and continue to collect money over a subsequent period.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    Capital is insanely cheap right now, and trying to get a good return on your investment is not easy. Yes, you could be a silent partner in a business.... but you likely won't get great returns, and you risk losing it all of the company goes under.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      The key is "sufficient capital" obviously. And, of course, it's all about diversification and rate of return. As you correctly note, being a silent partner in a business is riskier than a lot of the alternatives and, if it isn't a commensurately higher expected return, probably not a good idea. However, given sufficient capital (what's sufficient depends on what sort of income stream you're looking for), largely passive investments in various forms can produce that. After all, that's what many people are looking for when they retire.
ghaff 6y ago
Yeah, any product/service, probably has at least some level of ongoing bug fixes, security patches, updates, etc. There are periodically threads on here about creating businesses that mostly just throw off revenue. And there are invariably people who created a nice income stream for a modicum of ongoing effort. But there are very few paths to spending time over a year or so to get to a significant income stream that's little more work than depositing customer payments.
jkepler 6y ago
> Having to work consistently is the norm, not a treadmill. Agreed. Work is what creates value for others. However, trading one's work for money that's designed to loose value over time via the inflation tax central banks impose on us all is why so many hard working people feel they're on a treadmill that they can't get off. If our money functioned correctly as a tool to store value over time, people could work, save, and with frugal living could actually get ahead if their work consistently created value for their clients or customers. There are systemic monetary reasons why work often resembles a treadmill.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  Only 20% of people in the USA have more than 10K in the bank. Savings losing money over time isn't relevant to most people, they are spending what they earn before it matters. (and, btw, my point is not that people in the USA are spendthrifts. It's that most only make enough to support themselves).
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Inflation has been so tiny for decades. And in fact, most Americans are in debt, so inflation HELPS them.
- emodendroket 6y ago
  Deflationary currency would be a disaster for the economy.

zokier 6y ago

> Isn’t that what all business interactions end up being in the end? Only if you ignore capital. Many business interactions revolve around having access to or utilizing capital in some way. Renting and financing maybe the most obvious examples, but plenty of others too. The key question is that can/should software be considered such capital asset? It being intellectual (or "imaginary" as some pundits put it), and not tangible, property.

ghaff 6y ago
Certainly one obvious example is that, given sufficient capital, I can give it to a wealth management person at a brokerage, give them some guidelines, and pretty much sit back. You can also become a silent partner in some business where you collect a skim of the profits while someone(s) else do the work to make sure the business continues to produce profits. I was answering the vein of someone who wants to put in a largely one-shot investment of time and continue to collect money over a subsequent period.
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Capital is insanely cheap right now, and trying to get a good return on your investment is not easy. Yes, you could be a silent partner in a business.... but you likely won't get great returns, and you risk losing it all of the company goes under.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    The key is "sufficient capital" obviously. And, of course, it's all about diversification and rate of return. As you correctly note, being a silent partner in a business is riskier than a lot of the alternatives and, if it isn't a commensurately higher expected return, probably not a good idea. However, given sufficient capital (what's sufficient depends on what sort of income stream you're looking for), largely passive investments in various forms can produce that. After all, that's what many people are looking for when they retire.

ghaff 6y ago

Yeah, any product/service, probably has at least some level of ongoing bug fixes, security patches, updates, etc. There are periodically threads on here about creating businesses that mostly just throw off revenue. And there are invariably people who created a nice income stream for a modicum of ongoing effort. But there are very few paths to spending time over a year or so to get to a significant income stream that's little more work than depositing customer payments.

jkepler 6y ago

> Having to work consistently is the norm, not a treadmill. Agreed. Work is what creates value for others. However, trading one's work for money that's designed to loose value over time via the inflation tax central banks impose on us all is why so many hard working people feel they're on a treadmill that they can't get off. If our money functioned correctly as a tool to store value over time, people could work, save, and with frugal living could actually get ahead if their work consistently created value for their clients or customers. There are systemic monetary reasons why work often resembles a treadmill.

jrochkind1 6y ago
Only 20% of people in the USA have more than 10K in the bank. Savings losing money over time isn't relevant to most people, they are spending what they earn before it matters. (and, btw, my point is not that people in the USA are spendthrifts. It's that most only make enough to support themselves).
cortesoft 6y ago
Inflation has been so tiny for decades. And in fact, most Americans are in debt, so inflation HELPS them.
emodendroket 6y ago
Deflationary currency would be a disaster for the economy.