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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

> should ... truly fair ... should be ... acceptable

How do you determine these absolutes? Why is your 'should' and 'fair' set at whatever value you're using, and not whatever value someone else determined?

The only 'fair' is what someone is willing to pay.

If you aren't willing to pay someone 200m... then don't. Why do you care if someone else is willing and does?

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Fair in the sense OP is using it is in the moral sense, not the economic sense. Paying someone tens of millions of dollars when the lowest paid workers in that company make ten bucks an hour may be "fair" in the economic sense, in that it's what the market will bear, but I don't think it is any way fair in a moral sense.

I think too often people let the "morals" of the market replace actual human morals, and assume that because the market is "free" or essentially some uncontrollable algorithm, anything it does is moral by human standards. It's easy to throw your hands up and say "oh, well that's just what the market will bear" and assume all moral responsibility has been accounted for. But I disagree.

If you think it’s fair in an “economic” sense, consider that Amazon employs 1.1 million people. That’s a decent sized city and a very complex economy. Austin Texas for example is about 10% smaller and home of both Elon Musk and a large number of people who could be making more money at amazon’s lowest paying job.

What's the morals of stopping two consenting parties paying each other whatever they want for something entirely legal?

Because firms doing this has negative externalities - to be able to do this they are always going to be exploiting other workers or consumers, or competing in ways which harm society as a whole.

To be clear… just creating this kind of wealth imbalance in society is itself a form of harm.

You think a single individual (who didn't start the company I might add) should make 200 MILLION dollars.

We have a different value system.

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