[chacha102]

> Every currently rich person has done...

That's a pretty broad statement to make, especially with the implication that the only way you can become rich is by basically committing borderline fraud.

If you want to get rich, spend less, save and invest more. Nothing about that is fraudulent, and many would argue you'd have a more fulfilling life in the process.

[Nasrudith]

Marx-dogmatics are stuck in a dumb peasant mentality and think that making a profit is inherently fraudulent, and that everyone else should just break even.

[NoGravitas]

Tell me you've never read Marx without telling me you've never read Marx.

[hattmall]

But they truly are not wrong.

Spending less and investing isn't going to make you rich. It can certainly help, but it's definitely not going to get you rich unless you have a large amount to begin with in saving and investing.

Secondly, any of the "holier-than-thou" wealthy people that primarily just have good jobs seem to overlook the fact that they are enabled by an entire cadre of people stepping on others and committing those grey area border-line frauds. Much like how we overlook the sordid conditions in foreign countries to enjoy cheap (or expensive) products. It's extremely unlikely that there exists a major corporation that isn't exploiting loopholes, maintaining a legal team to skirt regulations, and engaging in practices that are legal but ultimately not beneficial to their customers.

It's not wrong to make a profit, but there's a level that's fair and reasonable and in many cases the profit margin is correlated to the morality of the provider. The willingness to harm others for profit is a necessary component to become rich in all but a very few edge cases.

Price is what you pay, value is what you get. If a contractor has a brand new truck, never hire them. Without fail the best work I have had done was by the businesses with the worst presentation. The shoddiest, felt like a scam, was always by the flashiest companies.

Advertising at its core is a way to create a falsely inflated sense of value to justify a higher price. The primary way to get rich is to prioritize profit over providing a fair value.

Even Doctors are provided with their high salaries only by an artificial limitation of supply and a variety of opaque exploitative practices.

[mewpmewp2]

What if you make a solo video game that millions of people are willing to buy and play and become a millionaire through that?

[immibis]

Then you're an extremely rare exception, very lucky, and we shouldn't design society around everyone being like you.

[mewpmewp2]

Well the main point is that I'm trying to find the common ethical ground, at which point does someone become unethical with the money they made.

So the first step was to see if there's any unethical ways at all.

We'd have other steps after that.

[immibis]

Of course there are unethical ways. Murdering a thousand people to steal their wallets, for example.

[mewpmewp2]

Yeah, sorry, I meant ethical.

[hattmall]

Yeah, that's reasonable. Assuming the game isn't exploitive or loaded with dark patterns and things like that. How often does that happen though?

It's always possible to dig deep enough and find questionable moral things, in this case, it would be about the platform, how customers are reached etc.

But that's far from my point, it's not reasonable to expect someone to avoid all creations derived through profits.

It's that the overwhelming majority, 99.99% of people who become rich are directly engaging in these questionable practices or are very directly supported by those who do.

Even making the video game likely makes you dependant on Microsoft, Apple or Google and the ills of their rise, but I see that as far enough removed that yes the solo developer could be considered reasonably ethical.

But again, how often does it happen?

In the US there are 1.4 million people with a net worth of over 10 million. How many of them were solo developers with a non-exploitive products that didn't sell out to someone who made the product exploitive?