If someone invented a machine that could print out cars for cents on the dollar, that wouldn’t make stealing those cars fair; especially if inventing that machine cost him billions of dollars.
In fact that’s reasonably close to the case for certain kinds of food - the costs for producing them are infinitesimal, but the logistics of researching that development process, making storefronts, advertising them, and having staff on hand to process the purchase add up. Yet that doesn’t stop some people from pointing to that production cost as reason to shoplift.
Memes like this have always been backwards justification to excuse piracy.
If someone invented a machine that could print out cars for cents on the dollar, that wouldn’t make stealing those cars fair; especially if inventing that machine cost him billions of dollars.
In fact that’s reasonably close to the case for certain kinds of food - the costs for producing them are infinitesimal, but the logistics of researching that development process, making storefronts, advertising them, and having staff on hand to process the purchase add up. Yet that doesn’t stop some people from pointing to that production cost as reason to shoplift.
Memes like this have always been backwards justification to excuse piracy.