2 ms·
> Is there a difference between Microsoft Office and medication Obviously not, silly. A product is a product. It doesn't matter if it saves millions of lives,
by squigz 3y ago
> Is there a difference between Microsoft Office and medication
Obviously not, silly. A product is a product. It doesn't matter if it saves millions of lives, ends them, or nothing in between - companies should be free to charge whatever they want, and if you judge them negatively for that, you're clearly in the wrong.
I can't believe I have to explain this!
- renewiltord 3y agoThe smartest thing we should do is make it profitable to build software and make it not at all profitable to save millions of lives. If we do it that way, people will work on the latter to the exclusion of the former. In fact, the more unprofitable we make the latter, the more of it we'll get.
- Dylan16807 3y agoKeep in mind that the point of maximum profit for a product leaves a lot of people unable to afford it. People are arguing against that kind of optimization, not arguing that private producers should lose money.
- renewiltord 3y agoAh, and what is the optimal number of people that should be unable to afford a drug?
- Dylan16807 3y agoSo I interpreted your previous comment as an argument in favor of profits, by sarcastically saying it should be unprofitable to save lives. In which case, shouldn't I be asking you what optimal profit looks like? Why would that be a question to me, when I was listing it as a problem with profit models? If that wasn't your argument, then I have no idea what you're arguing. (But I will go ahead and answer, which is that individual affordability should not be a factor in buying medicine, which implies that normal patent-and-profit models are not the way to go.)