What does such a philosophical statement imply ?
Pete Gracen (Jack Gwaltney) in Profit
Offer, Demand
The belief that when you're looking for something, there might be somewhere someone who can sell it, give it to you, or help you to acquire it, introduces the notion of search. This means that the ability to provide a link between both sides, the demander and the offeror, has itself a value. Google, Ebay, and a lot of companies based their business on this simple idea.Time, Money
With computers, costs of reproduction are almost zero ; with the internet, costs of diffusion are almost zero.So you want some information about a specific matter. It's gonna be somewhere someone, who wrote a comprehensive book precisely on this subject, who perhaps earned money with it, and who now is ready to give it for free, since he doesn't care whether to receive money or not from the diffusion of his research, or the reward he nowadays desires is only the esteem from the community independently of the cash it brings ; therefore he is ready to sacrifice the price of his work in exchange for spiritual gratitude. It's gonna be somewhere someone completely uninterested, ready to share the knowledge he gathered or created concerning this topic.
consequence 1 : most of journalistic articles, and a lot of novels are now free ; not that the number of non-free items has decreased, but the number of free texts has considerably increased, particularly with the maturation of ad-financed models.
consequence 2 : in the time vs money competition, time is gaining market shares.
consequence 3 : in this era of abundancy of information, between empty one-liners and time-consuming books, some formats are currently growing in popularity, like the short story and the essay ; this somehow gives rise to a niche : places where good short stories / essays can be found, accordingly to subjective customers' criteria.
Happiness, Sadness
Pubs, casinos, collectors, weddings organizers, undertakers, have something in common : they often deal with people under the influence of emotions, who won't care to give them more than if they were acting rationally. For instance, lets consider that everyone celebrates something at least once a year (a birthday, a successful exam, a sportive event, an important contract). For the bartender, it means that likely it's gonna be some customers who will be tonight so locally happy that they won't count how much they will spend. They'll drink the whole night ! A philatelist will give a lot to complete his stamp collection. In a more macabre register, when someone dies, the relatives are often ready to buy the most expensive services to honor the dead.
Six Feet Under : a confrontation between humans and death
Past, Future
The more you grow, the further you are from a newborn. By living a huge manifold of adventures, each of which is printed in your memory, you accumulate experience driving your upcoming behavior. That's the way past acts upon present. Anyway, it's gonna be someone discovering perceptions and ideas you already explored ; conversely you are likely living experiences someone else has been subjected to once ago. This is a fair reason to respect people.Little Neo, 2007