How about: accept that we are, like as a society, able to just not work as much? We are able supply people with a reasonable level of comfort without everyone slaving away this many hours every day. Let’s just build what we need at minimum labour hours over the lifetime of the products and not worry about the products making a profit for anyone. The profit of not having to work but being able to pursue interests would be so worth it.
Oh, I mean the complete overhaul of the economic system is the goal to be sure, im just talking about the difficulties such a company would face right now. And im not talking about some shareholder value bullshit either. Employees need to and deserve to be paid for their time and labor. Materials cost money. Upkeeping current equipment costs money, and getting new or better equipment to improve the product or expanding to serve more people costs money. If you ever want to expand, and altruistically we’re talking expansion for the purpose of helping more people, not pulling a profit, you need a profit margin by definition, even a sliver of one. You could get by for a while by charging at-cost price plus a couple of pennies. But if that dries up, employees go home without getting paid. Equipment and properties get sold. Manufacturing licenses are lost. Eventually the company either dissolves or is sold off to pay its debts.
Operating a company like that means you need to be prepared for very long dry spells, and if you want to be able to hold out for those and be able to do things like pay employees and keep licenses, you need deep pockets to cover it.
All this to say the revolution would need to happen before practices like this can be a reality, at least for the long term.
How about: accept that we are, like as a society, able to just not work as much? We are able supply people with a reasonable level of comfort without everyone slaving away this many hours every day. Let’s just build what we need at minimum labour hours over the lifetime of the products and not worry about the products making a profit for anyone. The profit of not having to work but being able to pursue interests would be so worth it.
Oh, I mean the complete overhaul of the economic system is the goal to be sure, im just talking about the difficulties such a company would face right now. And im not talking about some shareholder value bullshit either. Employees need to and deserve to be paid for their time and labor. Materials cost money. Upkeeping current equipment costs money, and getting new or better equipment to improve the product or expanding to serve more people costs money. If you ever want to expand, and altruistically we’re talking expansion for the purpose of helping more people, not pulling a profit, you need a profit margin by definition, even a sliver of one. You could get by for a while by charging at-cost price plus a couple of pennies. But if that dries up, employees go home without getting paid. Equipment and properties get sold. Manufacturing licenses are lost. Eventually the company either dissolves or is sold off to pay its debts.
Operating a company like that means you need to be prepared for very long dry spells, and if you want to be able to hold out for those and be able to do things like pay employees and keep licenses, you need deep pockets to cover it.
All this to say the revolution would need to happen before practices like this can be a reality, at least for the long term.