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>If this was true, the main question we would ask in a business is whether or not the output was useful. We don't ask that, we ask if it's "sustainable", "profi

by pb7 4y ago

>If this was true, the main question we would ask in a business is whether or not the output was useful. We don't ask that, we ask if it's "sustainable", "profitable", etc... To be fair, we do ask that: if you have no revenue, then you don't have a business, because the output is not useful. An output can be both useful and not sustainable. Giving away $100 to everyone that high fives you is not sustainable, for example, even though it's very useful to the recipient. It's certainly not profitable.

danShumway 4y ago
> if you have no revenue, then you don't have a business, because the output is not useful. I'm having some trouble reconciling this with the rest of your comment. You go on to describe an output (giving money away) that is useful but provides no revenue. I would agree that a useless product will very often have a hard time generating revenue, but I would not say that a lack of revenue is a strong signal that an organization is not producing useful output. I mean, the software industry is filled with examples of projects that are wildly useful to everyone but are perpetually underfunded and produce very little money for the people working on them. I would definitely agree with the truism that "if you have no revenue then you don't have a business", but it's just not clear to me where the "because the output is not useful" addition to that truism is coming from.