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Comment by rhizome | Hacker News Reader

What did the founder(s) of Little Caesar's Pizza create?

They created a place where people who value the food can get it at a price less than the value they place on it. So, first, they created consumer surplus. That is real wealth creation. Second, we know that it cost them less to produce the pizza than the price they charge. That is, they created producer surplus. Both are wealth created when none existed before.

This is why free transactions in a market economy make everyone wealthier.

PS: Please spare me a lecture about externalities. Formally, an externality exists when Bob's preferences are decreasing in Alice's consumption. Since economics does not place any restrictions on preferences other than being complete, non-satiated, and convex, they are a possibility. But, a society in which everyone is able to veto anyone's consumption on the basis of some externality is a nightmare (e.g., can't allow other people to eat meat, can't allow other people to have children, can't allow other people to enjoy the sunshine etc).

Unfortunately some externalities are not frivolous. It is kinda nice not to have polluted water, or polluted air, or deserts because of bad land management.

I'm not against your point of wealth creation, but externalities are real and do need to factor in. Individual veto isn't in play, but some sort of societally mandated rules-of-the-game are.

That may be true but someone has to pay to keep things like that. It’s a difficult position to claim that the people with wealth owe anyone else anything.

> have polluted water, or polluted air

There is no "pure" water or "pure" air. The "right" amount depends on costs and benefits ... None of that can be looked up anywhere and people end up bargaining over them indirectly.

Little Caesar's.

Particularly, they discovered an underserved market niche and found a way to satisfy people's desires in a cost efficient way.

That doesn't make sense as far as the point goes. There has to be something more than a tautology.

Well, if what you ask is a tautology the answer is almost obvious. Almost.

No, that's pretty much it. In comparison, Pizza Hut and Domino's have slightly better pizza, at a higher cost. Little Caesar's discovered that enough people (college students, in my experience) were willing to eat slightly worse quality pizza - that was larger, but at a slightly cheaper price. From memory, Domino's was $12 for a 14" pie, but Little Caesar's was $10 for two 10" pies, that weren't as tasty, but were "good value for the money"

They originally saved money by using a cardboard tray not a box, that had a paper sleeve over it to keep the pizza sanitary. They could get two pies in there for what it cost the bigger chains to deliver one.

Also their original breadsticks were amazingly good.

They were doing deep dish with crispy edges before anyone else.

Wealth is created when the value of inputs is less than what is paid for the final good or service. It's really as simple as that.

The fact that one person doesn't see value in a good or have a willingness to pay the asking price doesn't mean nothing is created. There exceptions however, but by and large people are free to pay whatever price for whatever good. Canned fresh air, little caesar's, art etc.

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