

How friendship became a tool of the powerful - sergeant3
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/07/how-friendship-became-tool-of-powerful

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Stratoscope
> ["Pay it forward" pricing] would seem to defy the logic of free-market
> economics. Markets, surely, are places where we are allowed, even expected,
> to behave selfishly.

I do tend to assume that people will act in what they believe to be their own
self-interest. (With some emphasis on "what they _believe_ to be".)

But it's not that simple. Take "carpool cheaters" for example - those who
drive in the diamond lane without the required number of people in the car.

Say you're driving in the regular congested lane and you see a carpool cheater
fly by. I strongly suspect that the vast majority of drivers in this situation
will feel at least a bit angry and resentful. After all, the "cheater" took
advantage of a special privilege they're not entitled to, while you are
following the rules and paying the price.

But if you look at it purely in terms of your own self-interest, the opposite
is true. It's one less car in your lane slowing you down - no different at all
from an actual carpooler. The "carpool cheater" is doing you a favor by
getting out of your way. You will arrive at your destination sooner, thanks to
the cheater!

I wonder how many people look at it that way, though. My guess is very few.

It seems that a perception of fairness can easily trump practical self-
interest.

~~~
rcthompson
Actually, carpool cheaters are not getting out of your way and can most
definitely slow you down if they're going the same way you are. Unless the
carpool lane runs all the way to your destination, or at least through the
source of the traffic jam, the cheaters will need to rejoin the normal traffic
flow at some point, and they will be merging in front of you instead of behind
you because they cheated. So every cheating car that passes you in the carpool
lane and takes a similar path through a bottleneck later is actually delaying
you. The same is not true of actual carpool cars taking the lane, because
while they put one additional car between you and your destination (like the
cheaters), they also offset that by removing at least one car from the road
entirely (unlike the cheaters).

More simply, carpool cheaters are cutting in line, which _does_ slow down the
line for everyone they cut in front of.

~~~
nostrademons
On a multi-lane highway, the carpool that cuts in front of you puts one extra
car ahead of you, but there was only a 1/N chance that the car they took off
the road would've been in your lane otherwise. So yes, they do slow you down.

The other interesting irrationality is that every other car on the road _also_
slows you down by exactly the same amount as the cheater, yet we're rarely as
indignant about the other poor saps on the road as we are about carpool
cheaters. So there is definitely a fairness aspect to this; we shrug off folks
who inconvenience us with minor annoyance as long as they play by "the rules"
for inconveniencing us, but we get mad as soon as someone inconveniences us by
_not_ playing by the rules.

~~~
rcthompson
The difference is that the cheater is only slowing you down because they're
cheating. Otherwise they'd be behind you. We understand that limited road
access is allocated on a first come first serve basis, and cheaters are
subverting that.

------
Animats
From the article: _" People will take more pleasure in buying things if the
experience can be blended with something that feels like friendship and gift-
exchange. The role of money must be airbrushed out of the picture wherever
possible."_

This article is mis-titled. It should just be "How business uses social media
to sell". (Mis-titling articles has become an industry. It used to be applied
to newspaper headlines on the front page only, but now it's everywere, coupled
with automatic SEO clickbait optimization.)

Remember, "sharing" is spamming. (Demote people who "share" commercial
messages on Facebook from "close friend" to "friend", to stop their spam.)

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _This article is mis-titled. It should just be "How business uses social
> media to sell"._

Not really; a big part of the article could be labeled as "marketers are
looking new ways to fuck you over, but it's cool; please ignore that we're
destroying the most basic human interactions for a quick buck".

------
tzs
> On the face of it, it would seem to defy the logic of free-market economics.
> Markets, surely, are places where we are allowed, even expected, to behave
> selfishly.

I don't think most people think of themselves as being in markets.

If I'm normally a nice guy [1] who doesn't take advantage of people, whether
they be friends or strangers, then when I am making an ordinary purchase of
something I'm not going to stop and think, "Hey...I'm in a _market_ here, so I
need to selfish...I can go back to being nice when I'm out of this store and
back on the street".

[1] I said _if_ , so no need to go through my comment history and write up an
exhaustive proof that I am in fact not a nice guy. I'm speaking hypothetically
in the present comment.

~~~
hsitz
I can freely admit that I never consciously think of myself as "being in a
market". However, I am very often consciously and often subconsciously doing
cost comparisons on virtually all goods and services I buy, which I think is a
hallmark of being/acting in a market. I may do this to a greater extent than
most, but I think most people are pretty price-conscious, most of the time.

