[notahacker]

One of the key differences between poet-musicians and lawyers is that if the former group do something that benefits you, you quite literally hear it. Corporate lawyers talking the board out of doing something damaging to the public because of potential legal ramifications do so behind closed doors. And lawyers for public companies are often quietly propping up the value of an awful lot of ordinary people's savings even when defending frankly indefensible acts. Similarly, the public is only indirectly picking up the tab for the production and distribution of unpopular music albums.

Shareholder return isn't an especially useful gauge of the redeeming features of sleazy corporate lawyers or artistic merit of moderately unsuccessful musicians either, but calculations of social benefit are a lot more complex than they first appear