<story><title>What is the unique value proposition of selling honey?</title><url>https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/03/09/bzzz/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>beloch</author><text>Given the source, I interpreted it as referring to how companies treat their employees (i.e. worker bees).  The story suggests that, all other things being equal, consumers might gravitate towards companies with a reputation for treating their employees well.  Mark, Barry, and Willy produce the same product at the same price, so how they treat their employees becomes how they differentiate themselves and win over consumers.&lt;p&gt;The problem is, all things are rarely equal and, if they are, businesses usually find ways of differentiating themselves that consumers care more about than happy employees.  When Mark starts losing business to Barry, he&amp;#x27;s going to cut his prices, spend more on advertising, etc..  Treating his bees poorly may actually help him squeeze more honey out of them at less cost, so Barry might not be able to match him without starting to mistreat his bees a little too.  Willy&amp;#x27;s costs are probably the highest of the three, but maybe he can use clever advertising to portray his product as a luxury item that&amp;#x27;s somehow better than Barry&amp;#x27;s or Mark&amp;#x27;s, even if it&amp;#x27;s identical.  If that fails he&amp;#x27;ll have to choose between happy bees and not going bankrupt.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to live in a world where a virtuous feedback loop would lead to companies treating their employees better and better, but history says that&amp;#x27;s not the world we live in.  We live in a world that has had to come up with labour unions when spirals of mistreatment and cost-cutting got out of hand.  We live in a world where executive pay is going stratospheric while employee benefits are stagnant.  Perhaps it would be a better world if people cared more about how companies treat their employees, but I honestly don&amp;#x27;t see how you get people browsing Amazon to choose the honey that&amp;#x27;s $2&amp;#x2F;jar more just because it came from slightly happier bees.</text></item><item><author>D_Alex</author><text>This reads like some kind of allegory, but I really cannot tell for what... But taking it in the somewhat literal spirit: we have a good analogy in the market with free range eggs.&lt;p&gt;Here in Australia, &amp;quot;free range&amp;quot; hens must be kept at no more that 10,000 head&amp;#x2F;hectare (or 1 sqm of land per hen). This is massively better than battery hens, which are kept at as low as... 0.03 sqm of cage&amp;#x2F;hen. The animal welfare benefits are huge, battery hens have a truly horrible existence, to the point where I believe that it is immoral to farm them in this way.&lt;p&gt;But some producers are advertising lower stocking densities, some 6 sqm per hen and others even 10 sqm. They are charging a small premium for their eggs, and some people pay it, because they like the idea of animals being treated well.&lt;p&gt;So yes, many people are prepared to pay a bit extra for ethical treatment of animals. Even people (if that where the original post was pointing at).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zentiggr</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;d like to live in a world where a virtuous feedback loop would lead to companies treating their employees better and better, but history says that&amp;#x27;s not the world we live in.&lt;p&gt;This sort of comment always reminds me of the quintessential answer: &amp;quot;That&amp;#x27;s funny, I always thought the world is what we make of it.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;If the only way we can &amp;#x27;make consumers choose better&amp;#x27; is to continually publish and broadcast the worst corporate behavior in order to spur these kinds of shifts, then so be it.&lt;p&gt;Scream loudly about WalMart subverting local government and historical societies to build a store within sight of Tenochtitlan.&lt;p&gt;Republish over and over about Amazon&amp;#x27;s treatment of their fulfillment workers.&lt;p&gt;Shame them all until the baseline is as much better as we can make it, and keep pushing against the entropy.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s how we make the world better.</text></comment>
<story><title>What is the unique value proposition of selling honey?</title><url>https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/03/09/bzzz/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>beloch</author><text>Given the source, I interpreted it as referring to how companies treat their employees (i.e. worker bees).  The story suggests that, all other things being equal, consumers might gravitate towards companies with a reputation for treating their employees well.  Mark, Barry, and Willy produce the same product at the same price, so how they treat their employees becomes how they differentiate themselves and win over consumers.&lt;p&gt;The problem is, all things are rarely equal and, if they are, businesses usually find ways of differentiating themselves that consumers care more about than happy employees.  When Mark starts losing business to Barry, he&amp;#x27;s going to cut his prices, spend more on advertising, etc..  Treating his bees poorly may actually help him squeeze more honey out of them at less cost, so Barry might not be able to match him without starting to mistreat his bees a little too.  Willy&amp;#x27;s costs are probably the highest of the three, but maybe he can use clever advertising to portray his product as a luxury item that&amp;#x27;s somehow better than Barry&amp;#x27;s or Mark&amp;#x27;s, even if it&amp;#x27;s identical.  If that fails he&amp;#x27;ll have to choose between happy bees and not going bankrupt.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to live in a world where a virtuous feedback loop would lead to companies treating their employees better and better, but history says that&amp;#x27;s not the world we live in.  We live in a world that has had to come up with labour unions when spirals of mistreatment and cost-cutting got out of hand.  We live in a world where executive pay is going stratospheric while employee benefits are stagnant.  Perhaps it would be a better world if people cared more about how companies treat their employees, but I honestly don&amp;#x27;t see how you get people browsing Amazon to choose the honey that&amp;#x27;s $2&amp;#x2F;jar more just because it came from slightly happier bees.</text></item><item><author>D_Alex</author><text>This reads like some kind of allegory, but I really cannot tell for what... But taking it in the somewhat literal spirit: we have a good analogy in the market with free range eggs.&lt;p&gt;Here in Australia, &amp;quot;free range&amp;quot; hens must be kept at no more that 10,000 head&amp;#x2F;hectare (or 1 sqm of land per hen). This is massively better than battery hens, which are kept at as low as... 0.03 sqm of cage&amp;#x2F;hen. The animal welfare benefits are huge, battery hens have a truly horrible existence, to the point where I believe that it is immoral to farm them in this way.&lt;p&gt;But some producers are advertising lower stocking densities, some 6 sqm per hen and others even 10 sqm. They are charging a small premium for their eggs, and some people pay it, because they like the idea of animals being treated well.&lt;p&gt;So yes, many people are prepared to pay a bit extra for ethical treatment of animals. Even people (if that where the original post was pointing at).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gridlockd</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;d like to live in a world where a virtuous feedback loop would lead to companies treating their employees better and better, but history says that&amp;#x27;s not the world we live in.&lt;p&gt;The world we live in has historically treated workers better and better, with some ups and downs, mostly for economic reasons.&lt;p&gt;The primary factor that determines worker welfare is the price of labor. If labor is cheap due to low demand and lots of people compete for jobs, they will accept being mistreated. If labor is expensive due to high demand and fewer people competing for jobs, they will &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; accept being mistreated. They will move on to greener pastures.&lt;p&gt;This is different across industries, of course. The plight is upon those who have little to offer to the demands of the economy. If nobody wants to eat honey anymore, having bees work for free wouldn&amp;#x27;t save the company.&lt;p&gt;What we also have learned from history, but tend to forget, is that price fixing doesn&amp;#x27;t solve the problem.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; We live in a world where executive pay is going stratospheric while employee benefits are stagnant.&lt;p&gt;This is numerically irrelevant, because there are very few such executives. Cutting into their compensation to pay the many lower-tier workers a tiny bit more would make no difference.</text></comment>