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Billionaires, Surplus, and Replaceability
- PaulHoule 4y ago1. Some e-commerce companies founded around the time Amazon was (say Etoys) did not survive the .com crash. That introduces an element of luck. 2. Some companies make huge profits because of lock-in in two sided markets, it is good luck for the firm to get in a place where it can attain that.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago> This seems to me pretty hard to argue with - if someone creates a surplus, who doesn’t want them getting to keep some large fraction of it as a reward? He literally just described free market competition, which reduces profits to 0, then said "I don't want that"? That's a bad start for talking about Billionaires. Without the free market assumptions, it's just monarchy with extra steps.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoPedantic and yet still relevant correction: Thomas Edison didn't invent the lightbulb. https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-light-bulb https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-light-bulb