I remember very clearly what everyone thought as it all happened in 2018. No one thought they could actually achieve all of the milestones. Everyone knows how much Musk overpromises. That they have is incredible and makes Musk totally deserving of the compensation.
In the case of compressed air, actual work is being done to make it... compressed air.
With water, it is still very very cheap relative to the value it provides. Why isn't water 20% of the GDP of the world? Isn't it that important? (https://alexdanco.com/2015/11/23/ways-to-think-about-water/, never read this essay btw, read several of Alex's other essays though. I'm assuming the essay talks about the importance of water)
Your first and second paragraphs are better arguments for subscriptions over one-time payment than they are for the existence of high profit margins despite software's cheapnes.
3rd paragraph. I'm not arguing against profits just, overly high ones in the face of cheap 'raw materials'.
4th and 5th. Questioning high profit margins in businesses (didn't realize eggs too had high margins tbh) and wondering if profits should be capped seem like obviously related things.
Solutions? In the case of SaaS:
— Product pricing starting high, but declining over time (yes, literally making laws that new software MUST be absurdly expensive at first).
Would mean:
(i) Fewer 100th x competitor software product since it's hard convincing people to part with say $100, you need to actually have a 10x solution.
(ii) Increased organic word of mouth growth, since users have an incentive (declining pricing) to increase total users.
Could you build in a feature to allow people download stuff instead of to local, but to G Drive/Dropbox into it? It's a way to permanently have stuff you like on your own drive. Personal web archiving too. There are these suite of tools around "personal information management" which need to be built.
i. Tesla’s Elon Musk May Have Boldest Pay Plan in Corporate History http://web.archive.org/web/20180208004856/https://www.nytime...
ii. Tesla’s Pay Deal to Keep Elon Musk: All or Nothing https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/teslas-pay-deal-to-keep-elon...