← Back to context

Comment by mnm1

7 years ago

Piracy is part of the classic "there are no problems so let's create some" response that has fueled such wonderful human endeavors like US wars since WWII, the drug war, and now information copying. The racket goes something like this: some people are happy and content so we must create some chaos and problems for them which will allow us to go in and 'solve' these fake problems in exchange for taking their money or other valuables. Who cares if people die, get tortured, or thrown in jail as a side effect? Fuck those people, fake problem X is so much more important we can tolerate those lives being ended or ruined. Substitute whatever you want that people are scared of for problem X and you got a modern day economy. By reinvesting some of that money into problem X, one can keep a racket like this going for decades, maybe centuries.

That's, unfortunately, sales&marketing 101. Whether you go by the old school ("people buy by needs and wants") or new school ("people buy by fears and passions") - we've mostly run out of easy and genuine needs/fears to solve and wants/passions to satisfy. So what's the strategy with the best ROI? Solve hard problems? Provide for sophisticated passions? No. It's to manufacture fake needs and brainwash people into wanting useless stuff.

That's why I hate sales&marketing as an industry. It's a thin layer of actual social good covered by meters of dishonesty and malice.

  • So sell a real product that people honestly need and want, that can't get outsourced to another country, and cannot be copied cheaply.

    I sell large portable wooden sheds. Very profitable.