Depending on where one lives, but many people have access to "free" government services, ranging from roads, education, unemployment security, healthcare, and more. The costs of these services are payed by taxes.
Some "free" services are sustained via donations. Wikipedia is a good example of this.
Some people might say that those are not examples of "for free", because someone is paying for those things, either via taxes or donations. They do have a cost for society. Yes, but in that case then ad-based services are not free either: the advertisers are putting the money to run those services, and the society is also paying a huge cost in thousand of hours of people's lives wasted down the drain, promotion of harmful products, scams, etc.
Linux, github, open source games/office suites/tools/etc, fediverse, irc, free cloud compute... You can live comfortably online for free without adds if you stick to the free/os world.
Flip side: Why doesn't YouTube pay users for the work they perform on their platform, re- impressions, interactions, training? The more often and "better" someone interacts with their services, the more "free minutes" without ads they earn. If someone is a big producer of value, they earn access to tiered UHD/4K/8K or "premium" content, or they're cut a check / given credits.
YoutTube is making money, somehow, off of us. Is it not our right to reclaim the excess value we are creating for them? Why is only okay for trillion dollar companies to have free lunch?
Good lord, no. "Excess value" is a frankly pants-on-head stupid notion that should have died in the 19th century. It assumes businesses should operate with not only zero profit but zero margin for expenses or growth. It is beyond stupid and I find it unbelievable that there are so many followers who really should know better on several level.
Conversely, profit now is less used for expenses or growth, and redirected to stock buy-backs and shareholders.
Excess value is real, measured not from the margin, or even money that goes back into the org, but value that is 100% extracted from the organization, often at the detriment of the org for the sake of shareholders. Its very often just parasitic.
People are so entitled now, "nooo i need my investments doubled at all costs". I have little sympathy for professional investors that have tied the global economy to short term private gain over long term sustainable growth. Its a rich child's game.
There are all kinds of reasons for professional investors to be in a position when they need an investment to double in the short term. Sometimes thats greed, other times it's to cover existing bets that are losing and could cause their entire fund to collapse.
Say, for example, a certain bank where to listen to the Fed and invest massive piles of cash deposited after currency debasement into federal notes and bonds. If those notes where purchased when the story was interest would remain zero only to face 4-6% interest months later, the investor could well need a quick win to dig out from those now toxic assets that can't be sold at face value.
So I understand there is a lot of nuance in this space, but:
> other times it's to cover existing bets
This is my issue. Our economy has become a casino for these professional investment firms with lots of capital to try to strike it rich. This is not a healthy way to run a system that determines who lives or dies in a big picture sense.
The economy has become a game for people with connections. It no longer matters if a business is healthy or profitable, if it does not work within this grand casino. The search for constant growth is killing us all.
Well I completely agree here, constant steady growth is a terrible, unsustainable model. There's no way around it, eventually we'll either fail or have to adjust course and give up on this idea that we can continue to consume more raw materials to create a steady growth of output value.
Right, the example I was attempting to give was a scenario where a professional investor may legitimately need to have a quick windfall from am investment. They couldn't sell their bonds that are currently worth less than they paid for them so the investor may legitimately need another investment to double their money.
Depending on where one lives, but many people have access to "free" government services, ranging from roads, education, unemployment security, healthcare, and more. The costs of these services are payed by taxes.
Some "free" services are sustained via donations. Wikipedia is a good example of this.
Some people might say that those are not examples of "for free", because someone is paying for those things, either via taxes or donations. They do have a cost for society. Yes, but in that case then ad-based services are not free either: the advertisers are putting the money to run those services, and the society is also paying a huge cost in thousand of hours of people's lives wasted down the drain, promotion of harmful products, scams, etc.