Comment by antihero
18 hours ago
Perhaps it's a testament to the fact that life used to be full of things that made it a little nicer that have been ripped out in the name of efficiency and profit.
Look at how beautiful old buildings were. However, now everything is a box, because it is more efficient.
In the name of profit is so misleading though. The reality is most people don't values a doorman enough to pay for one, and costs are now lower for everyone than they would be if doorman were around.
Costs were lower for all of 5 minutes before prices of everything else adjusted to capture the surplus.
This is not how economics works. Please think through your mechanism.
The people setting the prices are not some omniscient backroom of guys smoking cigars. They are thousands and thousands of people much like you can me, competing with each other.
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Old buildings were beautiful because the cost of hiring someone to build it, and the price of their lives when they fell off the facade, was lower than the value of the beauty.
Modern buildings draw the line somewhere else. I too wish there would be more beautiful buildings, but not at the old price.