3 ms·

I can’t disagree at all with what you've stated, but I’ll toss in a nuclear-take here: As a consumer, the IP theft has been fantastic. Prices for many things s

I can’t disagree at all with what you've stated, but I’ll toss in a nuclear-take here: As a consumer, the IP theft has been fantastic. Prices for many things stayed high for no good reason and market competition hasn’t been doing what it ought to because our market is broken in a number of ways to favor incumbents. It’s been the only effective check on the market in quite a long time. Now is it at all ethical? Perhaps not. But it’s extremely difficult to have sympathy.

libertine 2y ago
> As a consumer, the IP theft has been fantastic. (...) Now is it at all ethical? Perhaps not. But it’s extremely difficult to have sympathy. I think this is a great take, but prices aren't just a reflection of IP theft, but also of child labor, low wage labor, environmental damage, etc... so I will throw a question back at you: Do you think that we reached the point where Westerners aren't willing to pay the Civil price for Human Rights, and other Western values?
- redserk 2y ago
  I’d argue the cost of western values needs to be split up into two categories. We have the cost of “fair” (non-abusive) labor and the cost of expectations for increasing margins. On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices. On the second, I would assume most people wouldn’t care if someone isn’t able to extract a higher price for the good for non-direct-product-delivery reasons. Anecdotally, I purchased a thermal camera off of eBay for 1/3rd the cost of a FLIR camera with similar resolution. For a device that I’d use a handful of times a year, it’s difficult to justify paying 3x the cost for a name-branded FLIR. The value-add of 3x the cost isn’t apparent. This is a weird spot to be in because FLIR may be able to produce a device that’s 1/3rd cheaper… but then they’d risk their commercial market buying the inexpensive consumer-targeted device.
  - libertine 2y ago
    > On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices. > On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices. This is very hard to assess, other than price there's very little transparency about these practices. No one boats about this in their marketing material. But let me give you an insight: Kickstarter and other crowdfunding campaigns. Many companies try to launch their products and concepts on Kickstarter, only to find that someone made a copy of their intellectual property and beat them to market, and you will say, that's just the market optimizing itself. I think it's trickier than that, as we are draining people from bringing their products to market because there are people on the sidelines waiting to copy the outcome of their work and investment.

libertine 2y ago

> As a consumer, the IP theft has been fantastic. (...) Now is it at all ethical? Perhaps not. But it’s extremely difficult to have sympathy. I think this is a great take, but prices aren't just a reflection of IP theft, but also of child labor, low wage labor, environmental damage, etc... so I will throw a question back at you: Do you think that we reached the point where Westerners aren't willing to pay the Civil price for Human Rights, and other Western values?

redserk 2y ago
I’d argue the cost of western values needs to be split up into two categories. We have the cost of “fair” (non-abusive) labor and the cost of expectations for increasing margins. On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices. On the second, I would assume most people wouldn’t care if someone isn’t able to extract a higher price for the good for non-direct-product-delivery reasons. Anecdotally, I purchased a thermal camera off of eBay for 1/3rd the cost of a FLIR camera with similar resolution. For a device that I’d use a handful of times a year, it’s difficult to justify paying 3x the cost for a name-branded FLIR. The value-add of 3x the cost isn’t apparent. This is a weird spot to be in because FLIR may be able to produce a device that’s 1/3rd cheaper… but then they’d risk their commercial market buying the inexpensive consumer-targeted device.
- libertine 2y ago
  > On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices. > On the first, my assumption(/hope) is that many consumers would reconsider a purchase if they knew it was the direct result of abusive practices. This is very hard to assess, other than price there's very little transparency about these practices. No one boats about this in their marketing material. But let me give you an insight: Kickstarter and other crowdfunding campaigns. Many companies try to launch their products and concepts on Kickstarter, only to find that someone made a copy of their intellectual property and beat them to market, and you will say, that's just the market optimizing itself. I think it's trickier than that, as we are draining people from bringing their products to market because there are people on the sidelines waiting to copy the outcome of their work and investment.