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The age old conundrum: do people want what they get, or want what they get? Bezos got rich by buying labor from people for less it was worth, buying products f

The age old conundrum: do people want what they get, or want what they get? Bezos got rich by buying labor from people for less it was worth, buying products for less than he could sell them, and using them both to create a new retail possibility that had some distinct benefits for a lot of us in our role as consumers. Oh, and AWS.

WalterBright 3y ago
> Bezos got rich by buying labor from people for less it was worth, It was worth it to the people who took the jobs. > buying products for less than he could sell them, It was worth it to the people who sold it to Amazon. > and using them both to create a new retail possibility that had some distinct benefits for a lot of us in our role as consumers. I.e. not zero sum.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  I never used the phrase zero sum, and I don't think it's appropriate in this context at all. There's almost nothing that happens in a modern society that isn't a good deal for some of the people involved. Consequently, "it was worth it to X" isn't much of a metric. I get the sense that you're not a big fan of the concept of externalities.
- ben_w 3y ago
  In the Prisoner's dilemma, defecting is "worth it" to both, but neither wants to be in a situation where the other will. It is easy to create equivalent scenarios — one does not even need to intend to do so, though of course the scenario from which the name comes, the situation was constructed to get an outcome that a powerful person wanted. I think it is an important part of government, now that we know about Nash equilibria, to make sure that social and economic incentives are such that the collective good is aligned with the personal good. Neither Adam Smith and Karl Marx knew about these when they wrote their famous works, and (I think) just assumed these would be aligned. This is not to say that Bezos did or didn't do anything in particular; while there are things I'd criticise Amazon for, I think roughly half the usual talking points are misunderstandings.

WalterBright 3y ago

> Bezos got rich by buying labor from people for less it was worth, It was worth it to the people who took the jobs. > buying products for less than he could sell them, It was worth it to the people who sold it to Amazon. > and using them both to create a new retail possibility that had some distinct benefits for a lot of us in our role as consumers. I.e. not zero sum.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
I never used the phrase zero sum, and I don't think it's appropriate in this context at all. There's almost nothing that happens in a modern society that isn't a good deal for some of the people involved. Consequently, "it was worth it to X" isn't much of a metric. I get the sense that you're not a big fan of the concept of externalities.
ben_w 3y ago
In the Prisoner's dilemma, defecting is "worth it" to both, but neither wants to be in a situation where the other will. It is easy to create equivalent scenarios — one does not even need to intend to do so, though of course the scenario from which the name comes, the situation was constructed to get an outcome that a powerful person wanted. I think it is an important part of government, now that we know about Nash equilibria, to make sure that social and economic incentives are such that the collective good is aligned with the personal good. Neither Adam Smith and Karl Marx knew about these when they wrote their famous works, and (I think) just assumed these would be aligned. This is not to say that Bezos did or didn't do anything in particular; while there are things I'd criticise Amazon for, I think roughly half the usual talking points are misunderstandings.