Free exchange is a positive sum game when it is truly free. But if one party has significantly more leverage (like an employer or a landlord), that is no longer guaranteed.
30 karma · joined November 9, 2020
The poster, marak, is a founder [0]. They definitely understand product-ization. Yet two weeks ago they suffered an apartment fire and have been struggling to keep a roof over their head [1].
I can definitely understand the kind of bitterness that comes out of going through something like that only to realize how little the fellow humans around you really value you. Realizing that for all the positive signals (such as "popularity") you received before, precious few are willing to actually put resources on the line for you.
So, I think gp and marak aren't coming from a place of misunderstanding the world as it is, but rather a depressing understanding of our world.
Imagine, if you can, a much different world. A world where helping or recognizing the efforts of others meaningfully didn't put you worse off. A world where your quality of life wasn't determined by your ability to take more than you give (or to have started off with enough resources that you can afford to give more than you take).
Once you really see what could be, I think it's difficult to suffer what is.
[1] "I lost all my stuff in an apartment fire and am barely staying unhomeless." https://twitter.com/marak/status/1320465599319990272
[0] https://elv.sh/