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I understand the intent, but this article seems to be arguing for an Emperor's New Clothes scenario where no one can identify the value of something except for

I understand the intent, but this article seems to be arguing for an Emperor's New Clothes scenario where no one can identify the value of something except for a vanishingly small number of people. It's some economic variant of the tree falling in the forest analogy: if a service has quality but no one can recognize it does it have value? It strikes me as a recipe for regulatory capture and overcredentialing. Value ultimately lies in the purchaser, not the producer. Maybe it depends on the market but this seemed to be arguing for something dangerous to me.

WanderPanda 3y ago
I would go further and say it is not even with the purchaser but with the consumer (who by definition "destroys" that value)
blackbear_ 3y ago
> Value ultimately lies in the purchaser, not the producer. I'm not entirely convinced that this holds, in practice. It makes sense for rational purchasers with perfect and complete information, but that is never true in reality, and it ignored all cognitive biases that humans use to make decisions, including being misled by advertisment. For example, the tobacco industry can scream all they want that smoking does not cause cancer, but being loud about it does not make it true. Initially, people didn't even like smoking because of the bad taste, but massive advertising campaigns including paying celebrities to smoke in public changed the perception of the value of smoking. In a similar manner, after acquiring all major sources of diamonds and inflating their prices, advertisement convinced the public that a man absolutely needs a ring with a diamond to "prove" their love to their bride. Same for the food industry and sugar, you know where I am going. All of these are examples of "value" created by producers by misleading customers that their product is good and not harmful for them. But facts don't become true or false just because everybody believes in them. People can believe false things, and no matter what they do or say, those things remain false. Not to mention that immediate value for individuals can have considerable negative value in the long-term for society. Think at the huge resources we spend on finding cures for cancer and obesity, just because we sell addictive stuff and pretend that people "want" those. If you consider society as a whole, this appears to be an extremely inefficient use of resources.

WanderPanda 3y ago

I would go further and say it is not even with the purchaser but with the consumer (who by definition "destroys" that value)

blackbear_ 3y ago

> Value ultimately lies in the purchaser, not the producer. I'm not entirely convinced that this holds, in practice. It makes sense for rational purchasers with perfect and complete information, but that is never true in reality, and it ignored all cognitive biases that humans use to make decisions, including being misled by advertisment. For example, the tobacco industry can scream all they want that smoking does not cause cancer, but being loud about it does not make it true. Initially, people didn't even like smoking because of the bad taste, but massive advertising campaigns including paying celebrities to smoke in public changed the perception of the value of smoking. In a similar manner, after acquiring all major sources of diamonds and inflating their prices, advertisement convinced the public that a man absolutely needs a ring with a diamond to "prove" their love to their bride. Same for the food industry and sugar, you know where I am going. All of these are examples of "value" created by producers by misleading customers that their product is good and not harmful for them. But facts don't become true or false just because everybody believes in them. People can believe false things, and no matter what they do or say, those things remain false. Not to mention that immediate value for individuals can have considerable negative value in the long-term for society. Think at the huge resources we spend on finding cures for cancer and obesity, just because we sell addictive stuff and pretend that people "want" those. If you consider society as a whole, this appears to be an extremely inefficient use of resources.