Quote:
Originally Posted by rhadin
I read this repeatedly -- it's just the producer's greed. I'm prepared to face the wrath of MR, but isn't it just as valid a statement to say that it is the consumer's greed to demand lower pricing?
I guess my question boils down to this: What makes our (consumer) desire/demand for lower pricing any more justified than the producer's demand for higher pricing? To say that production costs are lower and therefore pricing should be lower is almost a non sequitor because it assumes that a profit margin can only be x%. The idea of capitalism is to produce a product at the lowest possible price and to sell it at the highest possible price, with both being subject to market factors.
Whether we are willing to pay the price is one thing, but I have difficulty seeing how producer greed is the beginning and end of the conversation.
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Hear, Hear! Everybody's greedy in some sense. I have no problem with it. The problem isn't greed, it's the following:
How do you amortize a cost of creation when the cost of production approaches zero? This is the question, and nobody, (and not me!), has the answer.
Nor has this not been thought of in the past. Read Robert Heinlein's
Waldo from
1940. The ending about free power and how to control it. That's before the digital age was thought of.