The economy is an interesting animal, because all it really does is reflect our behaviors, which includes the market manipulation and the legislation we create or support. However, the laws of supply and demand are in place and this means that supply is going to reflect demand, even if we are influenced to demand something that isn't good for us. Essentially, this is what advertising does, as even something as ubiquitous as running shoes, are bad for our feet for the most part.
It is worth about 400 billion dollars a year globally.
Just because we demand something, doesn't mean it is good for us, and this affects so much of our lives now, because there are so many choices. Once upon a time, companies had to make products that we wanted because we needed them, not because they were entertaining. Because of this, the companies had to produce something not only usable, but something real. This essentially put a cap on how much money could be made, because it had to be produced, transported, and there was a market saturation point, and speed of lifetime turnover. There were constraints on both the supply and the demand side.
However, we have now moved into a period of the economy that is disconnected from the physical constraints, but is still able to generate massive amounts of wealth. The digital economy and product range is far more effective at generating wealth, because it doesn't have to actually produce or ship anything. And, it doesn't even have to be something we need or is useful for us to spend copious amounts on it. But it is compelling.
Or is that addictive.
The products now are the equivalent of the drinks packed with sugar and caffeine, or cigarettes with nicotine, except it is for our minds. Anything to grab our attention, keep us clicking, scrolling and tapping, immersed in a tailored and endless stream of content that does nothing to improve the experience of our lives, and a lot to diminish the aspects we need to have a high quality of life, like relationships, communities and purpose itself.
There is no cabal or illuminati creating these conditions, it is just us doing what we do out of our human tendencies. Habits that are hackable, leverageable, and are easily influenced to illicit predictable behaviors. We want convenience, we want easy, we want comfortable, we want to be served - and the products are waiting on us hand and foot, without us having to lift more than finger, nor our eyes from the screen in front.
The entire economy is now largely driven by the non-practical, the digital world that provides little more than entertainment for the masses by drawing in eyes to spend time, but do nothing. And the more time we spend, the more data we provide, and the more tailored and addictive it becomes.
The more efficient.
Henry Ford created the modern production line, but economics in business is about optimization, and this happens through creating efficiencies. An employee at Google generates 10x more wealth than an employee at Ford, but where is the real value? You can justify some of it by having the information at fingertips and the like, but what we consume on the internet for the vast majority of us isn't going to help us, or anyone else create anything useful, anything valuable to the world of humans, yet it will generate more wealth.
It is very, very efficient.
The economy is what we demand, and we demand to play stupid games rather than do something useful with our lives. And as a result of what we demand, we generate the continued change in supply, where most of us work in jobs that don't produce much good for humanity, but serve to maintain this progression into isolation. We are part of the mechanism that will continually optimize the production of what we demand, until there is not only no value for us in what we consume, but also no room for us to even produce it.
We got served all right.
Who is they? They is we. But, some people are more they than others, as they have more influence over others, more ways to sway the demand, and optimize the supply, to become increasingly efficient at extracting wealth from the masses, by finding new ways to offer less, for more.
If we want off this ride.
We need to stop playing this game.
Or we are going to keep winning stupid prizes.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
