<story><title>The simplest app that makes money</title><url>https://billprin.com/2022/12/07/simpest-app-that-makes-money.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chii</author><text>&amp;gt; the type for whom the entire point of making things is to make money, not do something useful.&lt;p&gt;the fact that somebody is paying for said app implies that it is useful. Noone parts with money for an exchange that they don&amp;#x27;t find useful.&lt;p&gt;The idea that just because _you_ don&amp;#x27;t see it as being useful doesn&amp;#x27;t make it not useful.&lt;p&gt;If you suppose that the exchange ruins the world somehow, because there&amp;#x27;s some externality that causes harm to you, then it&amp;#x27;s a case of making such an exchange illegal through some democratic process, and have enforcement. Absent of that, i think it is totally legitimate, and that the person doing the entrepreneurial endeavor is just trying to improve their own situation. One does not have to have the purpose of &amp;quot;improving the world&amp;quot; - that naturally would happen as people exchange to make their own situations better.</text></item><item><author>ajkjk</author><text>The weird subtext of this article is that it&amp;#x27;s an example of a certain kind of person, the type for whom the entire point of making things is to make money, and it&amp;#x27;s only by accident that it&amp;#x27;s about doing something useful. Here&amp;#x27;s a person who reads entrepreneurship books and takes notes on good ways to find business opportunities, makes an app to help people basically cheat because that&amp;#x27;s where the money is, naturally explains how it&amp;#x27;s not cheating when asked, and dismisses the obvious reaction as &amp;#x27;negativity&amp;#x27;... I mean, it&amp;#x27;s cool to make something, I guess, but it&amp;#x27;s possible that your life&amp;#x27;s work is to help slowly ruin the world despite doing your &amp;quot;job&amp;quot; &amp;#x2F; following all the obvious rules of society at every step... and I kinda think this is what that mindset looks like &amp;quot;on the inside&amp;quot;?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>npteljes</author><text>&amp;gt;Noone parts with money for an exchange that they don&amp;#x27;t find useful.&lt;p&gt;Come on, there&amp;#x27;s many. You can, for example, manipulate people to pay for something. You can get them addicted, so that they become repeat customers, despite rationality. You can lie to a lot of people, so that you will have one time customers, but you can do that to a large crowd. You can quasi-force people to buy something, if it&amp;#x27;s a prerequisite for something else.&lt;p&gt;Just because people buy something, it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean it&amp;#x27;s useful. Far from it.</text></comment>
<story><title>The simplest app that makes money</title><url>https://billprin.com/2022/12/07/simpest-app-that-makes-money.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chii</author><text>&amp;gt; the type for whom the entire point of making things is to make money, not do something useful.&lt;p&gt;the fact that somebody is paying for said app implies that it is useful. Noone parts with money for an exchange that they don&amp;#x27;t find useful.&lt;p&gt;The idea that just because _you_ don&amp;#x27;t see it as being useful doesn&amp;#x27;t make it not useful.&lt;p&gt;If you suppose that the exchange ruins the world somehow, because there&amp;#x27;s some externality that causes harm to you, then it&amp;#x27;s a case of making such an exchange illegal through some democratic process, and have enforcement. Absent of that, i think it is totally legitimate, and that the person doing the entrepreneurial endeavor is just trying to improve their own situation. One does not have to have the purpose of &amp;quot;improving the world&amp;quot; - that naturally would happen as people exchange to make their own situations better.</text></item><item><author>ajkjk</author><text>The weird subtext of this article is that it&amp;#x27;s an example of a certain kind of person, the type for whom the entire point of making things is to make money, and it&amp;#x27;s only by accident that it&amp;#x27;s about doing something useful. Here&amp;#x27;s a person who reads entrepreneurship books and takes notes on good ways to find business opportunities, makes an app to help people basically cheat because that&amp;#x27;s where the money is, naturally explains how it&amp;#x27;s not cheating when asked, and dismisses the obvious reaction as &amp;#x27;negativity&amp;#x27;... I mean, it&amp;#x27;s cool to make something, I guess, but it&amp;#x27;s possible that your life&amp;#x27;s work is to help slowly ruin the world despite doing your &amp;quot;job&amp;quot; &amp;#x2F; following all the obvious rules of society at every step... and I kinda think this is what that mindset looks like &amp;quot;on the inside&amp;quot;?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ehnto</author><text>&amp;gt; Noone parts with money for an exchange that they don&amp;#x27;t find useful.&lt;p&gt;I think this is true at face value, but when we consider addiction and self-destructive behaviors it is clear that while the definition of useful my still apply, the result is a negative impact on society.&lt;p&gt;The easiest most inflammatory example is drugs, but a more nuanced example might be slot machines. I won&amp;#x27;t wax lyrical about the examples, but I think they show that a transaction of money doesn&amp;#x27;t imply a positive impact on society.&lt;p&gt;Another example is rent seeking and fees, sometimes the transaction of money is non-negotiable, and one side is exploiting the other, or a middleman has inserted themselves (sometimes through policy lobbying) and extracts rent that no one benefits from but them.</text></comment>