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by collegeburner 1509 days ago
There are a lot of reasons why this wouldn't work but fundamentally the LTV is an interesting toy but crap economics. Bottom line is utility to people does not depend on person hours involved in production.

Think about it this way: I can have somebody skilled or unskilled do a job. Assume that they make the same output but it takes unskilled 2x the time, let us say maybe producing some leathercraft. Their output is not worth 2x the skilled, it's the same thing. Now assume that they take the same time but the skilled produces an output of 2x quality, maybe they are cooking something and the skilled makes a dish 2x as good. Neither are they worth the same. It may actually be worth less because they produce it slower so consumer has to wait 2x as long.

1 comments

It can even get worse. Fundamentally LTV is subject to a very dangerous question of "who gets to define what is labour"? Is sitting around playing video games labour? Well what if you're at a video games company? Is smearing feces on a canvas labour? What if it's a commissioned art piece? What if it's an uncomissioned art piece that the artist knows will fetch a price? What if the artist is a chimpanzee? Etc.