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.
Either your "opponent" doesn't understand free markets or you just created a "straw man" to prove your point. There is no magic in the free market just as there is no magic in evolution.Food labeling comes as people want it. It may take time. People may create food coops (populated by avowed socialists) but the food coops are part of the free market (not from a top-down government bureaucracy).
The time and energy put in to make food labeling laws could be done to push the concept of food labeling to cons
The lawsuit canard is common, but it's made by people who are lying, because they (you) know that launching a lawsuit is difficult, and any offense smaller than the difficulty will be unaddressed. It is made by people who, therefore, want companies to be able to defraud consumers in small ways, but not large ways.
I am opposed to that, and those people; I don't want companies to defraud consumers even in small ways.
Yes, we could all sit around forever waiting for markets to maybe fix a problem, or we can jus
It's not a canard. No promoter of free market is in favor of caveat emptor. There are ways of dealing with the issue aside from sclerotic regulatory methods (which also requires law suits). Each method has it's problems.
If an advertiser says that 4 out of 5 dentists prefer X. The advertiser needs to point to a study that shows that 80% of dentists prefer X.
There are different mechanisms to solve the problem but it seems you want to stay with a failed system because it's tried and true.
Who's going to sue the advertiser if the advertiser doesn't provide the study? It's a big deal for an individual to sue, with very little upside. Having some sort of collective entity to sue is the only way to enforce such principles.
You seem to want to go with a failed system just because you're young and aren't interested in history. Just because an ideologically attractive idea didn't work before you were born doesn't mean it's going to work now.
The advertiser would not be the responsible party any more than the ux guy, the graphics people, front-end, back-end coders, dbas, and network people who were involved in putting up the website.
It's the management that cleared the copy who is responsible.
First lie. (not saying you - but in general) Free market capitalism == caveat empto.
Second lie. There is no free market solution to thieves. A thief is not only a person who puts a knife to your throat but someone who claims this product is x when it really is y.
How would this work? There would be companies (and organizations) whose sole purpose, and main source of revenue would be in checking that a claim is truly a claim. If you are interested there are tons of articles and white papers dealing with this.
I'm not an anarcho-capitalist but if there's one thing that community does well is explore this particular issue.
Okay, who sues the management? Bear in mind that filing a lawsuit, even in small claims court, would cost me more than any reasonable damages on low-level fraud, so it would have to be a collective organization, which you seem to agree with. Our big difference here is that I think the government exists and can do the enforcement, while you seem to think appropriate organizations would spring up to do this, and that somehow this (plus the load on the courts) would be better than having the government do i
If anything you said were accurate, then we would have had all those wonderful free-market services with no fraud and happy jolly unicorns, or whatever, before the era of big government.
But no, people looked around and were grossed out by the human flesh in their sausage, and decided they'd rather have big government than eat peoplemeat. Likewise, all other big-government regulations.
Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.
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:4, Informative)
The time and energy put in to make food labeling laws could be done to push the concept of food labeling to cons
Re: (Score:2)
The lawsuit canard is common, but it's made by people who are lying, because they (you) know that launching a lawsuit is difficult, and any offense smaller than the difficulty will be unaddressed. It is made by people who, therefore, want companies to be able to defraud consumers in small ways, but not large ways.
I am opposed to that, and those people; I don't want companies to defraud consumers even in small ways.
Yes, we could all sit around forever waiting for markets to maybe fix a problem, or we can jus
Re: (Score:2)
If an advertiser says that 4 out of 5 dentists prefer X. The advertiser needs to point to a study that shows that 80% of dentists prefer X.
There are different mechanisms to solve the problem but it seems you want to stay with a failed system because it's tried and true.
If we had
Re: (Score:2)
Who's going to sue the advertiser if the advertiser doesn't provide the study? It's a big deal for an individual to sue, with very little upside. Having some sort of collective entity to sue is the only way to enforce such principles.
You seem to want to go with a failed system just because you're young and aren't interested in history. Just because an ideologically attractive idea didn't work before you were born doesn't mean it's going to work now.
Re:That's all that consumer-oriented businesses do (Score:2)
It's the management that cleared the copy who is responsible.
First lie. (not saying you - but in general) Free market capitalism == caveat empto. Second lie. There is no free market solution to thieves. A thief is not only a person who puts a knife to your throat but someone who claims this product is x when it really is y.
How would this work? There would be companies (and organizations) whose sole purpose, and main source of revenue would be in checking that a claim is truly a claim. If you are interested there are tons of articles and white papers dealing with this.
I'm not an anarcho-capitalist but if there's one thing that community does well is explore this particular issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, who sues the management? Bear in mind that filing a lawsuit, even in small claims court, would cost me more than any reasonable damages on low-level fraud, so it would have to be a collective organization, which you seem to agree with. Our big difference here is that I think the government exists and can do the enforcement, while you seem to think appropriate organizations would spring up to do this, and that somehow this (plus the load on the courts) would be better than having the government do i
Re: (Score:2)
Re your point. It's simpler than you think although it will take a different take on the problem.
1. There would be companies who do this for a living.
2. Rewards would be based on sales made.
There are many, many papers and briefs (written by attorneys) on this issue. Please see the Cato Institute, von Mises and Heritage.
In general free market people are against lawsuits that circumvent individual responsibility (such as you have
Re: (Score:2)
If anything you said were accurate, then we would have had all those wonderful free-market services with no fraud and happy jolly unicorns, or whatever, before the era of big government.
But no, people looked around and were grossed out by the human flesh in their sausage, and decided they'd rather have big government than eat peoplemeat. Likewise, all other big-government regulations.