this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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All billionaires are evil people that decide to accumulate wealth instead of distributing the surplus and living off enough to not have to worry about the future. All. Of. Them.
Yes, even Taylor Swift and Gabe Newell. They have enough money that they could set 100m aside, live off that and charge break-even prices for their products so more people could enjoy them or they could charge the same thing and redirect their share of the profits into charities, they choose not to.
I'm a Taylor Swift fan (not a Swifty) but I'm 100% with you.
I pirate her music (tbf all music). I've gotten into heated arguments on Lemmy on how she's one of the "good" ones.
No such thing as a good billionaire.
My completely unbiased exception is LeBron.
"Ain't no party like a Diddy party"
So wholesome.
wait what, shes a THOUSAND MILLIONS DEEP ???"2? wtf thats stupid
She became a billionaire by selling tickets for more than necessary and makes the choice to continue doing so to enrich herself.
As I said, there's no reason she couldn't have started doing shows that only broke even once she had enough money to live off of for the rest of her life, she decides not to do that and she decides to continue accumulating wealth we can't even imagine.
Remember when Musk said if he could prevent famine for 6B he would do it, he was presented with a plan and didn't do it? All billionaires are guilty of doing the same thing and the way they accumulate the means to do that is by selling us things for more than they're actually worth.
Don’t forget about the exploited workforce which might be more than the obscene prices.
All the people who work at the venues could be paid lots more.
You also HAVE to exploit people in order to get there.
I agree and it's pretty obvious if you think about it for a short while.
Even religions know this, it's just a simple fact of life.
You are completely correct. There are so many exits before becoming a billionaire that any normal person would take.
Once you have millions you can live comfortable. Tens of millions and you're set for life, you can live in luxury without ever doing another day's work.
Hundreds of millions and you can buy anything you ever want or need. The only reason to continue accumulating money is because you get some fucked up pleasure from it.
You can claim you "earned it" through "working hard" but it's a pathetic assertion. The simple fact is money is only gained at the expense of others.
Isn't Gabe's net worth literally just the value of Valve? In order to cash his money out, he'd have to sell Valve.
I don't want him to sell Valve. I like him being in charge of Valve, he's doing a decent job.
He's got a yacht collection, six of them, costing him more to maintain a year than you and your children will ever be worth.
Boycott Steam and support GOG and itch.io!
Buy, Borrow, Die. Rich people don't sell shares. They take very low interest loans banks are more than happy to lend them. Use their shares as collateral. Then pay no taxes and only a small amount of interest. They do this forever until they die.
It's why everything is associated with "make number go up".