Comment by LeonB

There’s a deeper economic lesson in here. Essentially it could be summarised as: government cannot leave policing to the market.

In modern capitalist democracies with social benefits there’s a lot of debate/opinion about what the state should do versus leave to the market.

Imagine you establish a successful little utopia on an island somewhere. At first you outsource policing to a few strong and forthright friends, then as the place grows you let the market decide. But as the place really matures you end up having to bring policing “in house”, controlled by the state. There is still plenty (plenty!) of ways it can be corrupt… but when anti-virus / policing etc is fully outsourced - over time its corruption levels completely saturate.

Similarly - a military power that relies on mercenaries/soldiers of fortune/contracted parties. It cannot work beyond a very short term. (Machiavelli goes into this in a lot of detail in ‘The Prince’ … he was super evil but he was no fool.)

Seems strange to say that Bill Gates should’ve read more Machiavelli and he would’ve avoided creating the leeching anti-virus industry for so long.