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Comment by Edmond | Hacker News Reader

I hope people don't forget the profit motive of Mr Musk. It seems technology entrepreneurs have adopted the rhetoric of "just trying to make the world a better place" while conveniently ignoring their own profit making motives. I am no friend of car dealers but I am also not going to be suckered by a self-serving sales pitch.

While I don't necessarily support the NJ move, I think we should start asking questions about economic value flow. If people live in one place yet all their economic activity is directed to some place on the other side of the country, what is the long term effect of this on their local economy?

I don't exclude myself, we all use these web services that are highly concentrated in SV, what is going to happen to our local economies?

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Elon made enough off PayPal to never have to work.. ever again . Instead he put all of his money into Electric cars, solar power and rockets with a huge chance that he would loose it all (and almost did). I don't think that profit is his motivating factor.

I seriously don't understand people that get mad when someone makes a profit. Like are those people expecting to work and earn nothing? When you risk your capital, should you not get a return? And when you risk it on something crazy like electric cars, shouldn't the profits be even that much larger, to compensate you for the out of proportion risk?

No one's getting mad about profit making, the point being made is that when profit-making is the motive, it is disingenuous to position your argument as being about something else (such as pretending to be advocating for good government).

But its not about profit-making purely. Because if it was, there are easier ways to make a profit ... like the way these crony motherfuckers do it with their dealerships.

Let's not forget the $500M loan Uncle Sam, er, The American Taxpayers, made to Musk, which in the case of Tesla failing, would have been a write off for us, but in the case of Tesla succeeding, only makes us a bit of interest, while making a billionaire more billions.

Tesla repaid their loan nine years early and is the only American car company to have fully repaid the government ever. This is a company the American Taxpayer should be truly proud of.

Also, do you really believe Elon Musk started an electric car company, a company which builds rockets and one which is the largest residential solar power provider in the country, under the only premise to make more money?

I would prefer that if the government is using our money to support companies we should at least get an ownership stake. As it stands, E-Mizzle, who already had a large personal fortune, received a huge risk free loan from us.

Perhaps your government felt that there would be non-financial benefits to supporting efforts to make affordable electric cars. Can you not think of any?

Certainly. If you are in the business of making high risk low interest loans for no equity stake, please contact me immediately.

People complain about "corporate welfare" but Musk gets the "cool sustainable tech bro!" pass.

> I don't think that profit is his motivating factor.

People are allowed to have multiple motivations.

> I don't exclude myself, we all use these web services that are highly concentrated in SV, what is going to happen to our local economies?

They adapt, as all economies must to the changing winds.

That is an optimistic take, the evidence so far with the move of manufacturing to low-wage countries suggests otherwise.

Isn't that what we preach here as automation puts half the US workforce out of business? Oh, what's that? I'm a Javascript engineer making $100K+/year? It doesn't last forever (i.e 98-01 tech boom, the sands move quickly underneath us).

The future is going to be not only disruptive, but destructive, to industries and people alike. How we turn out as a society will be determined by the policies we develop around handling this turbulent time in human history.

Oh no! I might take a slight hit to my standard of living while the developing world massively increases theirs!

> That is an optimistic take, the evidence so far with the move of manufacturing to low-wage countries suggests otherwise.

Like Germany?

Making the world a better place, and making a profit shouldn't be considered divergent goals. You act as if profit motive should be treated with inherent suspicion.

Well, if local businesses choose the services that save them a lot of money it'll probably make them more profitable and allow them to grow and hire more people.

> I think we should start asking questions about economic value flow. If people live in one place yet all their economic activity is directed to some place on the other side of the country, what is the long term effect of this on their local economy?

What do you mean? Isn't there economic value in owning a Tesla? Just because the money flows the other way doesn't mean there isn't value in owning the product.

The problem isn't with owning the Tesla but rather that the economic transaction involved in acquiring the Tesla would leave nothing to NJ (except perhaps sales tax).

When you have a dealership, you have local folks working there thus some of the money that car buyers spend gets circulated locally, which would not be the case if all you have to do is point and click to get your car delivered.

This is a serious concern as more economic transaction is virtualized.

You don't forcefully create jobs when there are none required. Lets get rid of computers and hire thousands of accountants instead. Tesla still has service shops where the local people would be employed.

> the economic transaction involved in acquiring the Tesla would leave nothing to NJ

As I understand the sales will shift completely from local venues to point and click only after the laws in question come into power. The stores that are about to become galleries do employ local folks and a sales ban may imply reductions on sales-related positions, right?

I don't know if you are familiar with how car dealerships tend to be distributed but a gallery would not be an adequate replacement. Typically you have numerous dealerships in towns/cities, I suspect you won't have anywhere close to that many galleries.

In any case, issues like this I believe are just the beginning of a larger debate to come. I don't see how local economies are going to sit idly by and watch us do all our shopping on Amazon.com where the only part of the transaction's economic value that enters the local vicinity is perhaps the delivery truck, that is not sustainable.

I do much of my shopping on Amazon and other online retailers.

It's one of the things that makes it practical and tolerable for me to live in a somewhat isolated, low-population-density town/area where I own a home, pay taxes, receive medical care and various other non-remoteable services, purchase prepared food and other perishable goods, all while working for a company based on the other side of the planet, bringing in a fairly high salary for the area.

My local economy receives far more value because Amazon makes it easy for me to live there than they would if Amazon didn't exist and I instead lived in a much more convenient large city.

You mean like buying billions of gallons of oil from the Middle East?

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