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His selfish motives resulted in a new product that many people seem to like. I think it’s amazing that we have a system that can harness his ambition, benefitting both him and the consumers of his product.

Milton Friedman wasn’t wrong. It’s important to mention that he specifically stated that businesses should operate within both legal and ethical norms. Suggesting that unethical or illegal behavior is excused by his theory is wrong.

In addition, businesses are only “islands of socialism” to the extent that it increases profit. Ronald Coase’s ‘Theory of the Firm’ lays out the logic of this arrangement. Business relationships are voluntary, and the threat of monopoly is greatly exaggerated.

Build more housing capacity. An increased supply of housing could support both long term housing and legal Airbnb rentals.

Because of static supply, the two use cases are competing in a zero sum way, but that needn’t be the case.

The point about the range of most cars meeting maximal needs reminds me of when some people buy a vacation home vs renting.

People are willing to pay a premium to know for certain that something is available for them to use on a whim, even if they would never do so.

There’s something about the increased flexibility and redundancy afforded by long range capability.

Health insurance should be decoupled from employment. Its tax advantaged treatment causes distortions in the costs and coverage offered. I’d rather see people get more of their compensation in cash rather than a health insurance benefit. It would especially help poorer workers who would have more flexibility and choice.

It depends on whether you sign up within the app or sign up on the Netflix site and simply log into the app. Paying through Apple will give them the 30% cut.

This is really cool.

One suggestion. Allow the mouse to control the spaceship movement in both x and y directions. It’s intuitive to try to point the mouse to the place you want your ship to go, however the mouse only controls the Y axis.

The government has distorted the market by subsidizing college with guaranteed student loans unable to be discharged in bankruptcy.

I’m confident that a fully private market would limit student loans to those with a positive ROI. Of course, that’s politically unpalatable in the US.

That’s not true. If an organization benefits its customers/users in some way, it’s still doing a good thing if it captures some of that benefit in the form of profit.

The relentless competition in retail never ceases to amaze me. I remember when online order delivery times for basic items were measured in weeks. Now, I can order the most obscure of items and get it at my door in 1-2 days.

Any ideology or policy prescription that does not accurately reflect the reality of human nature is bound to be ineffective or counterproductive.

A lot of the claims in this article are intuitive or common sense. However, there is a subset of people who wish to engineer society in such a way as to erase variation between different groups.

Men are more aggressive than women. Men will probably continue to be more aggressive than women. We should try to harness this variation for good outcomes rather than try to eliminate the variation altogether.

This episode discusses the incentive structure of insurance companies, drug companies, and other middlemen driving up the price of drugs.

The patent system with respect to drugs is a mess. The proliferation of secondary patents on established drugs has to be done away with. Drugs are expensive not because they’re any better, but because of monopolies gained through abuse of patents.

The 80/20 rule on insurance company profits also has a perverse effect. The only way for insurance companies to earn bigger profits is by increasing costs. If they try to save money for their customers, they would be forced to earn less.

In my opinion, the system needs less tinkering by government and more control by individuals over their own care.