> if people will pay for a service, doesn't that fact give the service value over 'bullshit'?
That's not necessarily true. There are a lot of reasons why people or companies pay for things, and those reasons aren't necessarily related to the value of the things themselves. Consider:
- Corporate environments where bribery -- or its fancy equivalent, paying for nice dinners and ski trips for customers -- determines sales.
- Conflict-of-interest: guy responsible for purchasing works out a big contract between his firm and the vendor his wife owns.
- Vendor lock-in.
- Fear. This explains pretty well the bidding wars between Google and Facebook -- each of which fears losing an advantage over the other -- over startups whose value can very rarely reasonably amount to N times the value of companies who actually Build Things.
Money is at most a loose approximation for value. It can represent other things as well.
That's not necessarily true. There are a lot of reasons why people or companies pay for things, and those reasons aren't necessarily related to the value of the things themselves. Consider:
- The effect of advertising (in grocery stores, for example: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2009/11/10635.html).
- Corporate environments where bribery -- or its fancy equivalent, paying for nice dinners and ski trips for customers -- determines sales.
- Conflict-of-interest: guy responsible for purchasing works out a big contract between his firm and the vendor his wife owns.
- Vendor lock-in.
- Fear. This explains pretty well the bidding wars between Google and Facebook -- each of which fears losing an advantage over the other -- over startups whose value can very rarely reasonably amount to N times the value of companies who actually Build Things.
Money is at most a loose approximation for value. It can represent other things as well.