Minimum viable product, maximum revenue extraction.
If you don't like the product, don't buy it or use it.
Or did you think the evolution of subscriptions and microtransactions was to benefit you, the customer?
Oddly enough, yes. Successful businesses are motivated by maximizing their profit. But they succeed at this only if people actually choose to buy their products because they benefit. The fact that the business is primarily motivated by its own profits is not a problem, because in a free market, the only
You free market people are so blinded by that ideal that you cannot imagine how a corporation could be manipulating and tricking the masses to fritter away their money. Are con artists acceptable to you? Some people may see microtransactions and subscriptions for what they are, but many don't. To say that the consumers only buy things they benefit from is completely wrong. It is in their psychology to not ascribe the same significance to many small payments vice fewer large ones.
I was once having this debate with a free-market-promoting friend, when I managed to actually win it.
1. I asked him if he liked food labeling, and he said yes, but that if people like labels then they could just demand them in the free market. 2. I said yes, but labeling isn't in the interests of any producer, so if none of them labeled, then would customers just choose to starve to death?
Done. I won. He even admitted it and I think he slightly softened his rhetoric after that.
but labeling isn't in the interests of any producer,
In addition to the other rebuttals, labeling is in the interests of the producer because it gives the consumer confidence that the product is what it says it is.
It lets people who need to avoid certain ingredients (like wheat or salt or excess sugar) or who just want to watch their calories buy your product. Without that labeling, most of them would probably avoid the purchase altogether. Food labeling is one of those rare situations where everyone's benefited, producers and consumers.
"In addition to the other rebuttals, labeling is in the interests of the producer because it gives the consumer confidence that the product is what it says it is."
If it were true, then we wouldn't have regulations forcing food makers to put labels on food, because the labels would have always been on food.
It is false to assert that consumer interests imply business interests. They don't. Occasionally they overlap, more often they don't.
That's all that consumer-oriented businesses do (Score:4, Insightful)
Minimum viable product, maximum revenue extraction.
Or did you think the evolution of subscriptions and microtransactions was to benefit you, the customer?
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like the product, don't buy it or use it.
Oddly enough, yes. Successful businesses are motivated by maximizing their profit. But they succeed at this only if people actually choose to buy their products because they benefit. The fact that the business is primarily motivated by its own profits is not a problem, because in a free market, the only
Re: (Score:0)
You free market people are so blinded by that ideal that you cannot imagine how a corporation could be manipulating and tricking the masses to fritter away their money. Are con artists acceptable to you? Some people may see microtransactions and subscriptions for what they are, but many don't. To say that the consumers only buy things they benefit from is completely wrong. It is in their psychology to not ascribe the same significance to many small payments vice fewer large ones.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes! Yes! EVIL CORPORATIONS use the MAGIC 'FLUENCE to force people to BUY THEIR STUFF!
My cat told me, and he would know.
Re: (Score:2)
I was once having this debate with a free-market-promoting friend, when I managed to actually win it.
1. I asked him if he liked food labeling, and he said yes, but that if people like labels then they could just demand them in the free market.
2. I said yes, but labeling isn't in the interests of any producer, so if none of them labeled, then would customers just choose to starve to death?
Done. I won. He even admitted it and I think he slightly softened his rhetoric after that.
Markets do not respond to the d
Re: (Score:2)
but labeling isn't in the interests of any producer,
In addition to the other rebuttals, labeling is in the interests of the producer because it gives the consumer confidence that the product is what it says it is.
It lets people who need to avoid certain ingredients (like wheat or salt or excess sugar) or who just want to watch their calories buy your product. Without that labeling, most of them would probably avoid the purchase altogether. Food labeling is one of those rare situations where everyone's benefited, producers and consumers.
Re:That's all that consumer-oriented businesses do (Score:2)
"In addition to the other rebuttals, labeling is in the interests of the producer because it gives the consumer confidence that the product is what it says it is."
If it were true, then we wouldn't have regulations forcing food makers to put labels on food, because the labels would have always been on food.
It is false to assert that consumer interests imply business interests. They don't. Occasionally they overlap, more often they don't.