Hacker News Reader

Comment by sol_remmy | Hacker News Reader

Everyone in this thread directly supports inequality through their buying decisions and I'm callin' them out.

Anytime you use Netflix, Google, HackerNews is supporting inequality. Every time you bought a Harry Potter book as a kid you supported inequality. You're giving more money to the winners.

If you want to reduce inequality, then buy books from unpopular authors. Use unpopular OSes like TempleOS instead of giving even more market share to Google/Apple/Microsoft. Drive cars made by less popular manufacturers. Don't read the New York Times, Fox News, or Washington Post - only blogs or magazines with a small subscribership. And don't watch anything Disney.

View on HN

I really hate arguments like this. I saw this concept mocked in a book once. Among other things, it had pretty women intentionally making themselves less attractive.

We need to find ways to make smaller organizations more robust and less vulnerable to having their lunch eaten by large organizations. But this advice to not buy anything popular and only go with that which is unpopular is not the right way to do this.

Was that book Harrison Bergeron?

I don't recall. It may have been a short story rather than a book. I read it a long time ago.

I don't think your definition of inequality, which basically equals popularity, is a useful one. The article is about income inequality. While it is true that people always making the unpopular choice would reduce winner-takes-all effects, it's not worth it: it requires great personal sacrifice, and as an individual there is almost no gain: society is hardly going to benefit when you intentionally hamstring yourself by running TempleOS, or when you choose to eat at a bad restaurant instead of a good one.

Surely creating laws that try to limit income inequality makes much more sense, especially when looking at cost/benefit?

> I don't think your definition of inequality, which basically equals popularity, is a useful one. The article is about income inequality.

My definition is perfect. High popularity -> high income -> inequality. If you bandwagon onto a popular author like J.K. Rowling, then you are further enriching her and causing inequality.

If you want to legislate away inequality for say, Twitch streamers, then pass a law that no Twitch streamer can have more than 500 views. Or authors who have sold >100,000 books can no longer sell books.

It doesn't have to be the case that high popularity -> high income. That's how we structure it in our society currently but there's no reason it has to be that way.

We could still have popular things, and even reward their creators with a lot of money, but less than we currently do.

how?

On the far left, there's a saying "there is no ethical consumption under capatalism". The idea is that 'voting with your wallet' comes from a position of privilege that by it's very nature can't receive the critical mass necessary to create change in inequality. The vast amount of people won't have the spare capital to spend on simply fighting inequality, so instead what you'll see is boutique industries that make upper middle class, center left consumers feel better, but don't create any actual change. See Toms.

"And don't watch anything Disney." It's difficult since Star Wars now is Disney. But you made a really good point.

I'm not going to respond to most of your comment, but this suggestion is pretty weird:

> Use unpopular OSes like TempleOS instead of giving even more market share to Google/Apple/Microsoft

...Why? You could also just use Linux or BSD. TempleOS seems like a very odd suggestion for people looking to cut out non-free operating systems cold turkey.

Edit: In case this isn't clear, I'm responding to the commenter's commercialism thesis. I mean free as in beer, not as in speech.

You're still giving market share to the "open source winners". Linus and RedHat have both made piles of money.

The GP is about popularity not freedom.

No it isn't, it's clearly about commercialism. The commenter makes specific examples and includes the phrase "buying decisions".

How can it be inequality if you are not comparing someone who delivers the exact same service or product?

It isn't the quality of the service or product that is being compared. It is the fact that when you buy from companies with really good/popular products you are doing so with a bunch of other people and that puts more money in the pockets of the people who made quality products. If you don't like them having lots of money, spend your money elsewhere.

Is that inequality though? I believe inequality is when differences are unjust or someone or something is being discriminated against based on other things than merit or quality.

I'm not defending their position. Just clarifying what they meant. :) If someone has a better service, many people in the US feel it is just fine for them to capture a lot of the market and this isn't an inequality issue. Others think that if someone makes more money than someone else, it is inequality and should be "fixed."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com