3 ms·

What's your point? That the system is just fine thank you Sir, move along?

• carlosjobim 3y ago
  My point is that is logical and not that bizarre that companies will do anything they can to broaden their customer base. Once you've sold your product to the rich and the middle class, you have to target the poor. Because your factory keeps spitting out product and you need customers.
  • lwhi 3y ago
    Some companies only sell to people who are financially struggling. And a great deal of these companies rely on people not being financially literate to make huge amounts of money. There's no inevitability to these systems. People make choices to run companies these ways. They don't have to sell because the factories can't stop making products.
    • carlosjobim 3y ago
      You're talking about individual companies, I'm talking about the systemic factors in general. > They don't have to sell because the factories can't stop making products. What are they supposed to do? Shut down the factories and fire their workers? Industrialised production relies on huge up-front investments and large operating cost, in exchange for enormous output and low per-unit cost of production. That's how it works in capitalism. That's how it works in communism. If industry can't operate on that model and need to get their income from fewer customers, then consumer goods would be much more expensive as a result. Also much better in quality, but inaccessible for the majority of people.
      • lwhi 3y ago
        We're talking about subscription services. A huge number of these services won't actually even supply physical goods. Your argument isn't relevant here.
        • carlosjobim 3y ago
          Mass media is also an example of mass production, working in the same way. Whether it's through subscriptions or selling physical media or entrance tickets, creators seek a huge audience. They usually have huge investment costs to produce their stuff, whether it's money or time. Then their cost-per-unit sold is extremely low, sometimes approaching zero. But if they can't get paid by a mass audience, then creativity will have to return to bespoke works. Ie, artists will make their work for rich individuals by commission, instead of to the general public.
          • lwhi 3y ago
            I do see your point, but it seems to me that you're trying to explain why capitalism isn't the problem. I don't think this is true. Think about the system you're describing. It makes a lot more sense until you introduce the concept of greed. These companies aren't going to a mass market instead of selling to smaller rich audiences. They're selling to the mass market as well. There's no target profit amount. "As much as possible".