alt Hacker NewsYou're overlooking that net new value was created in both of the scenarios. Don't you have any idea how many family horse businesses went under with the invention of the car? How many artisans wound up broke post-industrialization? We can both agree that we'd all be much much poorer in the world where those things didn't happen. NVidia makes a huge margin on the things they sell. Is that theft?
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The issue isnt that theyre overlooking new value created it's that you're overlooking the enormous power imbalance some parties are using to exploit others for material gain.
Uber's profit margins are about 10% value created and 90% exploitation of power imbalance between the rich corporation and itinerant drivers and less well capitalized competitors.
Whether somebody acknowledges this reality or not tells you where their political allegiances lie.
No they aren't overlooking it. They literally call out the additional net value created (i.e. iPhone hw sales), and then call out that to make the enormous amounts that they do make, they also crib value from others (i.e. app store).
You can argue that the app store and vetting process itself is worth up to or over 30% (i.e. they are giving value away, not extracting it), but they make a clear distinction.