I disagree. I mean like people have already mentioned, it's all about getting some practice and not really being profitable. You could think of it as the opport

I disagree. I mean like people have already mentioned, it's all about getting some practice and not really being profitable. You could think of it as the opportunity cost (hopefully I'm using that term right as I'm no Econ guy either). You lose a little money for the opportunity to become really good at making more later (or maybe you'll defy the odds and actually profit). And it doesn't have to be eBay. Any kind of low risk practice really. I don't really think your comment on picking up trash to improve work ethic really fits. It really doesn't matter how you practice as long as you do it. For those of us already in business we could simply practice this using our own businesses to experiment. We pick a product, service, or just some smaller, lower risk aspect of our business that we feel comfortable playing with and then charge more, less, or change the pricing model altogether. I think his post makes total sense in these terms and I doubt he means we should literally sell iPods. It's just a nice example. He probably did use commodity wrong (it's debatable, iPods can be a commodity as some would rather get a deal than get a brand new one from the Apple store) but it wasn't a huge error. All in all, it's hard to tell you that you're wrong because you make total sense but at the same time I also think you're reading into this a bit much and maybe taking what he says too literally?