All value is finite, and every time value is used, it decreases. The middlemen are merely causing the thing to die faster. For instance, if you discover a nice beach which hasn’t been ruined with plastic and glass bottle yet, and make it into a popular area, you won’t get to spend many happy summers at that place.
If you find oil and sell it, are you creating value, or are you destroying value? I think both perspectives are valid. But since the openness of information in the modern world makes it so that everything which can be exploited will be exploited, and until the point that exploitation is no longer possible (as with the ruined beach), I strongly dislike unsustainable exploitation and personally tend toward the “destroying value” view.
And if you want something to worry about, let it be premature exploitation. X ‘creates’ value and chooses not to exploit it prematurely, but then Y will come along and take it, so X is forced to capitalize on it early. Now you have a moloch problem on your hands.
All value is finite, and every time value is used, it decreases. The middlemen are merely causing the thing to die faster. For instance, if you discover a nice beach which hasn’t been ruined with plastic and glass bottle yet, and make it into a popular area, you won’t get to spend many happy summers at that place.
If you find oil and sell it, are you creating value, or are you destroying value? I think both perspectives are valid. But since the openness of information in the modern world makes it so that everything which can be exploited will be exploited, and until the point that exploitation is no longer possible (as with the ruined beach), I strongly dislike unsustainable exploitation and personally tend toward the “destroying value” view.
And if you want something to worry about, let it be premature exploitation. X ‘creates’ value and chooses not to exploit it prematurely, but then Y will come along and take it, so X is forced to capitalize on it early. Now you have a moloch problem on your hands.