The entire reason markets exist is so people can exchange what they don't want for things that they do want. For the purpose of this discussion, they are fungible.
One would think that it would be true of pretty much _any _ market. I know it's not being meant literally, but even so, there are only so many people in the world, and people only have so much money. Even something that's essential for everyone like food is going to be limited by that; eventually you'd need to wait for there to be more people if you want to be able to sell more.
Pretty much all markets sell convenience. Buying something at one place and time and selling it in another that's more convenient to the buyer is what traders do.
And yes, alternatives exist. But companies are selling the bits for more than the cost of production and millions of people are buying it, despite cheaper competition. This seems to be sustainable. So the original argument about economics and what markets will bear is false.
I’m a trader by profession, so fulfilling a market need because it exists for whatever reason isn’t something I struggle with. These threads aren’t about whether or not there is demand for the things you mention. Nobody disputes that.
The discussion is more nuanced about scale and longevity and that demand.
The demand side of the market is driven by people hoping to sell to someone else for more money. That doesn't seem sustainable. Almost all markets have a demand side driven by people who actually want to own or use the thing.
A good counterpoint to my argument is gold, which has very little industrial use but a very high price, driven by people wanting to sell it for more to others. And it's been running for a while. I've heard all the explanations of why, they make zero sense to me.
Because it's a zeroth-order, zero-thought mantra of an argument? A childish one-dimensional approach to a multidimensional question?
Among other things: There is no "market". There are markets. There is a market for hardcore pron. There is a market for child-safe web surfing. There is a market for violent games. There is a market for nonviolent games. There is a market for a device you can be seen using in a corporate boardroom. There is a market for a device you can give to your mom. There is a market for a device that makes Steve Jobs proud.
Many of these markets are mutually exclusive. Some of these markets are bigger than others. Some of them have higher prestige. Some of them have much higher margins.
Markets exist because of scarcity, not because of abundance. If something is available in unlimited abundance, there's no need of a market for it.
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