> "But Zynga’s big spenders really live up to their reputations. Customers in the top 20 percent spent an average of $571 in 2016, and customers in the top 1 percent spent more than $4,000 each! (This means, at Zynga, WI80=30x and WI99=49x.)"

I don't play Farmville and maybe I just don't get it, but I can't imagine normal people spending that kind of money on an online game (even if they are rich), unless there's some kind of addiction involved.

If someone told me that the top 1% of slot machine players (by amount spent) spent an average of $4,000 each per year, I wouldn't say "boy, they must be loaded to be able to afford that kind of cash", I would say "I think they have a gambling problem and many of them are probably spending money they can't afford."

Zynga isn't necessarily responsible for their users financial decisions, but it's kind of a different situation if they're catering to the elite vs exploiting psychology to extract money from people who make make poor financial decisions. I don't know anything about Zynga's practices and don't have an opinion one way or another, but I found the dollar amounts kind of surprising and potentially alarming.

> exploiting psychology to extract money from people who make make poor financial decisions.

I've no love for Zynga and their shitty practices, but you could make the same criticism of people who have children. People will spend whatever they've got to be happy. $4000 per year is not an alarming amount unless you're ruining lives to pay it.

In a very real sense, the F2P business model only really works if the game is popular amount non-paying customers—otherwise, what would motivate whales to get into it in the first place? A whale-based system pretty much guarantees a product that's as widely accessible as possible.

Of course, it has its own massive ethical issues; I am no fan of the practice. (Not least because the people spending the most money aren't always the ones who can afford to spend that much!) But it does neatly invert the dynamic and uses the top 1% of spenders to finance something primarily enjoyed by the 99% who spend little to nothing.

I'm not at all convinced of this. Considering that much the properties of the game that land such whales are based on triggering addictive behavior, it seems much more likely that the whales' income profile is similar to that of a lotto ticker purchaser in the US: relatively poor people.

But for a richer person, 3k a year is what they give to their kids for christmas in gifts.

That said, I don't think income level has anything to do with it. There are poorer people who shouldn't waste money to play the lottery or gamble in casinos, but do it anyway. There are also wealthier people who shouldn't waste money to play the markets, or other "casino/lottery for rich people" things, but do it anyway. It's just that our society is mostly oriented to treat the poorer people as compulsive gamblers -- which is treated as a moral failing -- and the wealthier people as "serial investors" or other terms which carry a more positive connotation.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-br...

I once calculated what it took to have a fully upgraded base within a week (New Level 11--if I remember correctly ...) and it was something like over a million dollars.

And there were multiple fully upgraded bases within a week. Now that's a whale. o_O!

So I don't doubt your figures but there's probably a "one week whale" trajectory that's built into it to give quick gratification for something like $250,000. Still seems outrageous but they can discount digital goods differently than retailers can.

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/author/RaminShokrizade/91404...

One thing he mentioned is that what those whales do is "buy the server," literally buy the top spots in any competitive aspect through spending so much cash that the ante to get into it excludes everyone else. I think at that level everyone else really doesn't matter; it's a spending contest versus the other whales for status.

What happens is that eventually the ante gets so high that the other whales look for a new game or new server to fight over.

Although in reality, I bet the big spenders are not super wealthy. They probably spend way more than they can afford.

There is not a ton of outrage about inequality. Orthodox capitalism would say its just.

But, capitalism is to serve the well being of society, not the other way around, and it is possible to preserve the idea of a person compensated according to their contribution/work while maintaining a certain level of fairness for all.

That fairness can be measured by the inequality/wealth gap. Its been growing worldwide since 1980, except for Russia, nowhere faster than in the US. This is not a political argument its a fact.

Also, much of the political debate falls short. Its already accepted that govt should redistribute, to compensate for capital inherent advantage over labor, after all the us income tax is a progressive tax.

For instance, taxing incomes higher than cap gains results in increased inequality. Sure you can argue that's a hypothesis, but as far as hypotheses go, it doesn't boggle the mind.

Whats the plan? Lower corp rates, leave middle income rates essentially unchanged. Add in the new economy where people are less needed. Expect more inequality for the time being.

Btw, UBI is a lousy approach to solve this. You don't compensate people to not work. That brings inflation which is very bad. You correct for the imbalances of the rich feeding off the lower income groups in the tax code.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-fed...

My point in asking is this: quoting statistics such as the above is often a 'push poll' type situation, trying to suggest a particular conclusion, often by idealogues.

Interpreting that information requires a whole lot of other information and the conclusions to be drawn are not what one might initially assume.

That's an interesting hidden pitfall of increasing income inequality and wealth concentration. Companies like Coca Cola got huge because their target market was basically every American - rich or poor. If income inequality continues to rise a more profitable strategy might be selling very expensive beverages to the wealthy instead, leaving the poor underserved. This is already happening with prestige, "health" beverages like cold-pressed juice and Kombucha.

In my opinion a person can work hard and make money in the millions in a lifetime. That can be done by penny pinching and good old fashioned hard work and bootstraps.

But a billion dollars? Ten billion? You can't get there without stepping on someones neck. The fact we even have elites means someone's getting screwed.

Eat the rich.

You can become a billionaire by producing something that tens of millions of people appreciate (and by being extremely lucky I guess).

Elites existing are not a sign of people getting screwed. The poor being so worse off they literally cannot afford food, on the other hand, _is_ a sign of people getting screwed.

The economy is not a zero-sum game.

For example: good for Rowling but why aren't more authors able to make a living writing?

In my opinion the fact that it's possible to win the economic lottery like Rowling or Notch is a symptom of a greater problem.

J.K. Rowling made hundreds of millions because hundreds of millions of people bought her book. Why did hundreds of millions of people buy her book while most authors struggle to get tens of thousands? Mostly because people recommended it to their friends, and their kids all passed it around school, and news stories got written about it, and major motion pictures came out, and it became a cultural phenomena where Harry Potter references snuck into every corner of life.

Look at any other billionaire and you see a similar story. Minecraft got huge because everyone was like "Yeah, I totally wasted a week playing Minecraft. No regrets" and so everyone checked it out. Facebook got huge because everyone was like "Are you on Facebook? Here, I'll friend you." Ditto LinkedIn and Whatsapp and every other social network. Uber got there because at parties people would casually say "Oh, I'll just Uber home." Google got big because people would be like "Just fucking Google it" instead of telling you the information.

Basically, when you can get your customers to do your marketing for you, you rapidly expand into the whole set of potential customers, which numbers in the billions. Provide just $1 of value to them and you're a billionaire. Most business owners and employees, by contrast, are forced to explain why it's worth giving money to them, which is a process that doesn't scale. Then you're forced to only deal with customers who will pay you more than it costs to convince them to fork over that money.

The way you can break this cycle and eliminate this inequality is to convince people to make their own damn consumption decisions and ignore what their friends say. Good luck on that.

This doesn’t mean J.K. Rowling wrote a bad book or doesn’t deserve the money. That is a apparently very distracting example that misses the actual point.

I’m saying that when a person makes billions (read: lots) of dollars in a society that has people starving to death or otherwise unable to meet their basic needs then there is some exploitation happening somewhere. The economic rewards of that work are larger than the individuals contribution, someone is getting screwed.

As an example: artists often have this feeling that they need to stay "pure" to their air to make it. Yet, the best artists that often "make it" are actually businesspeople first and artists second. They will think about creating art that can and will sell.

Second to this is the fact that money generally ends up making more money. If I have $10m in the bank (a small amount of money in the grand scheme of things and looking at how much money goes around in the world), then on average, if invested properly, this should generate you about $1m in capital gains per year. Most people don't spend a million a year.

Add to that any income you might be making from whatever you're doing (entrepreneurial stuff, etc) and it's generally very hard to drop out of the elite once you're there.

Sure Rowling wrote a great book and the economic gods smiled on her and we got a new pop culture staple. But what about the authors of other books that are similar but made orders of magnitude less money? Does it make sense that there is such a gap? Is everyone involved being fairly compensated? Even the people running the printing presses and delivering the books?

Is it beneficial that "money makes money" without the promised trickle down effects to the middle class? Why is it possible to make a million dollars in a year with 10 million (10%!) but not just as easy to make say $100.00 with $1000.00? If $10,000,000.00 is such a small sum why will the overwhelming majority of people never see that amount of money in their lifetimes?

Yes it is hard to drop out of the elite, because they're keeping the wealth, they can't even help it. This is the neck stepping I referred to.

Nothing ever stands alone and you generally need help from other people to achieve things. Her story is rags to riches -- if she can do it, literally anyone can do it. Was luck involved? Of course, to some extent. But hang out with the right people and you would be surprised at how much is possible in life. There is a reason why success often seems contagious.

On the second part: it's an effect from a capitalistic society. In fact, you can easily achieve the same returns (even higher) with lower capital. It's just that the outcome matters less: you can't live off of $100.

Have an open mind. $10m is literally one good idea away. Invested in Bitcoin in 2011? There you go. Made a great app in 2007? Maybe not $10m, but at least a few. Etc. Opportunities pop up all over the place -- most people are just not looking and too busy working a job and living life.

Literally everyone can make millions, IF that is what they desire and want to achieve in life. You just have to work towards it. Is it easy? Hell no. Should it be easy? Hell no.

Last: the elite isn't really keeping the wealth. They obviously won't just give it to you, but there are plenty of opportunities for people with good ideas but no money to team up with people who do have the money, and make something happen. And most will gladly share the gain.

In order to create a system where it's possible to become a billionaire by writing a book we also create a system where a lot of people can't become millionaires by doing essentially the same thing.

I'm speaking philosophically here, you're describing our current civilization.

* a specific subset of all people who posses the correct personal traits and opportunities.

So?

"In order to create a system where it's possible to become a billionaire by writing a book we also create a system where a lot of people can't become millionaires by doing essentially the same thing."

But they are not doing the same thing. They also write, yes, but not so good. Or maybe also good, but not what the masses wants.

And that's the other point, the masses decided to buy it - so the masses decided to make Rowling a star and rich.

Where is the problem? That not everyone can have big fame and big success? Well, that's the nature of things.

It only gets problematic if the elite use their power to bend the rules of the game, so that not those who deserve it (those who create big value) get successful and rewarded, but those of other traits ... so the game should still be fair. But I think we made progress with that. Some decades ago, it mattered much more, where you came from (nobleman) than today.

If somebody else had all the same skills and wrote another book that was just as good, there probably still wouldn't really be room for both of them. Only one series can be the pop culture youth fiction darling at a time.

Hardly, she could still be a huge success story if she split that pie of disposable income halfway with another author who was her equal- but public attention doesn't really work like that, is the problem.

But targeting whales to avoid the masses lottery, yes, I'm with you & the article there.

If it were quality, Diane Duane or many, many other skilled writers would see success.

This has the potential to paint the wrong picture as is. The wrong picture being that growth breeds connections to successful people -> breed success -> breed wealth.

Another way to view it is, connections to successful people breed growth -> breed success -> breed wealth. This way "lucky" connections only aid in developing a better product, and not in practicing unfair marketing for existing products.

But wealth isn't really "allocated". To use the previous examples of Rowling and Notch, no one allocated millions of consumers to buy their product. Millions of individuals decided to freely spend their own money on Harry Potter and Minecraft.

Most developers do not make games that are as accessible or extensible as Minecraft.

Would your ideal system deny them the rewards of creating something massively successful?

Because consumers don't like them as much. The market increasingly is a winner take all, moving away from the 20%-80% split. How many books did you buy this year? How many were from indie/unknown authors?

Democracy contains a fundamental assumption that society is continually evolving. You're putting a lot of words in my mouth here. I don't think our current system is perfect, that does not mean I want to institute a dystopian centrally managed society. It means I understand the basic concepts of democracy, and nuance.

I don't think our current levels of wealth inequality are healthy or sustainable. Personally I'd like to see a wealth tax where you pay for the portion of the national economy you hold.

Assuming that I'm going to read 50 books of a certain niche genre that has 5000 writers worldwide, the best 50 writers in that niche have a significant economic value (and thus deserve huge rewards, because we want them to continue writing) the next 50 have some value, and the remaining 4900 writers in that niche are useless, they can do it as a hobby if they want but we're not going to support them much - we don't need their writing, because someone else can do it better. Why would I ever want to read the 101st (according to my preferences) best book if I'll never get the time to read the 100 books that I'd like more than that? It might as well have never been written as far as I care.

This is the inevitable result of abundance, of having more choices than you'd possibly need. Think about this from the perspective of food - if you want an apple, and are walking by a tree that has a hundred apples of various ripeness. The few most ripe apples are useful - you pick one of them; if you want a second one or have a friend with you, then you might want a few more... but the 90% that aren't as attractive have zero value if the tree has more apples than anyone could ever want to consume. And this is the case for writing; there's more fiction writing than anyone might ever be able to read, thus you're inevitably reading just a small fraction of it, and if something's good but worse than the many alternatives, then it's worthless.

The same applies in any industry that scales. I want to watch a top-10 footballer, but the top 10000th is useless to watch (although they're really good, they're among the best 0.1% of the millions of soccer players worldwide); the same goes for music, software, all kinds of creative works.

To make this even more clear, economic gain is disproportionately allocated to a few individuals at the expense of all other participants. It stops being a meritocracy and becomes a lottery for the producers funded by the capitalists at the expense of all other participants.

Thats what I asked you. How many indie authors have you supported by buying their books and spreading the wealth. Or do you have a better way to spread the wealth apart from the government taking it by force from whatever class it deems as enemies of the people this week?

Now, this might not be much above minimum wage and it might seem outrageously cheap. But you're not undercompensating them if you can find the people.

Functionally, we've got a two-tiered system, and transitioning between those tiers is quite difficult.

Most of us here on hn are at least very expensive commodities, which isn't quite the same as being a capital owner, but it's a lot more comfortable and a lot more free than being an inexpensive commodity, the leasing of which often cannot cover operating expenses.

I personally have spent some time operating as a small time owner of capital... and I should write more about that; Experimentally, I personally am better off as an expensive commodity, precisely because it's quite difficult to make that jump from commodity to capitalist. I wasn't good enough to make it. I can see how if I were a little smarter, a lot more disciplined, if I had more luck or sense, I might have made the jump. but I'm... not average in a whole lot of ways. The average person is going to have a much harder time of it than I did.

Do you think it is a reality of capitalism that there be these two classes? Certainly capitalists must exist in capitalism but is it possible for us all to be capitalists? I see no reason why not. Can one be both a capitalist and a commodity?

It is only possible for us all to be capitalists (in the sense that is meaningful to me - that your income comes from the return on capital) in a world where the work is done by robots, or by people do the work for fun or adventure... because, you see, someone needs to do the actual work that keeps things running.

The capitalist and the worker are not peers, there is an inherent power imbalance. It's not a free contract if you can't say no.

If the worker doesn't work, she will starve. If the capitalist can't find workers, he won't starve, he can always use the money for himself.

That statement ignores so much of reality today that it isn't really applicable. It ignores the fact that people must work in order to survive, and as such, the employer holds most of the power in that relationship.

If the value generated from work is less than minimum wage, it may not be that fair to the business, but usually those types of unfair scenarios are corrected.

Fairness in compensation for an individual revolves around a livable wage. Of course, “livable” is highly debatable. Should livable compensation be enough to be able to save? Does it include being able to afford a home in a safe neighborhood? What is safe?

Neither of them influences politics enough to be considered elite in the parent meaning. Both are just someome with a lot of money and a little influence. They don't fund think-tanks to push for favorable tax policy nor know how to do it nor have enough money to do it.

Its incredible that for a tech related site like HackerNews so many here are salty about people getting wealthy off technology.

On the one hand, if those scraps are enough to live on (and educate my children and so on), it's fine with me because it's enough.

On the other hand, the economy as a whole is so much healthier with vigorous participation by the 99%.

But maybe that's all a fallacy -- if the economy truly becomes driven by the 1%, then maybe there can't be enough for the 99%?

That's a pretty sad state of affairs though. Constant "revenue optimization" means it's almost guaranteed that scraps will be less as time goes by. I mean, rich folks can always want more, no?

The issue isn't with "we have scraps" but the 1% focusing on the 1% and that if you don't have an economic voice, you will eventually lose all of your remaining scraps and your rights (e.g. Native Americans, Palestinians, etc).

Now you just have to add in privatized military and drone/AI based policing and it starts to look a lot like dystopia.

You may not know this, but I am the richest man in the world. All economic activity is technically mine, carried out by stewards of my capital. However, I have decided that the most humanitarian approach to this massive responsibility is to let things run their course - I am comfortable on a meager living, so I take no interest. It's not like someone is going to replace me: after all, everyone in the world simply manages my funds, and does their best to earn the right to manage more.

Now, my brother on the other hand - he's a notorious criminal. He owns nothing rightfully, but his famous heists have resulted in a 3% annual decrease in the value of every bank account in the world; and even worse, the multitude of shots fired in the ensuing high-speed chases have done the same to essentially every asset.

Congress has decided to close the loopholes my brother has been using to escape justice, but they're fine with me.

Why shouldn't the government lock up a criminal that does so much damage? And what does it have to do with you? Does it matter that he is your brother? Are we supposed to judge you by his actions? Are you saying we are lucky to have a benevolent dictator such as yourself?

.1 If my brother and I were one person, it would go from illegal to legal but nobody's balance sheets would change.

.2A (use this one if you like historical materialism) Laws and ethical notions are constructed because of balance sheets. Why, then, don't we change the law so that the apparently arbitrary distinction goes away?

.2B (use this one if you like utilitarianism) There's no basis for law beyond utility, and it's obvious that both cases have the same result. Therefore, there's no basis for a legal distinction.

I've never figured how to get out of this argument, except by making private property a fundamental right. That sounds a lot like objectivism, though.

Allow? I'm pretty sure they don't need to allow anything. Media is becoming more potent at manipulating public opinion and the politician with the most donations can afford the best media. Whether his/her actual policies are in the material interest of the 99% voter is irrelevant.

Just note how much of the most recent election hinged on social signifiers instead of economic policy.

A recent mobile linage game came out, and it is the ultimate gacha (spend to gamble for random chance of results) game.

Those that spent at least $5000 were at the top in no time. To be in the top 500 you had to spend over $200.

It is sad to see the industry this way, but there are people willing to pay so the market exists.

Then Facebook with FarmVille (2011) came along, and introduced Free2Play aka Pay2Win to everyone. You had to spam friends (exponential scale) with requests to advance OR pay real money - this was for whales.

Since FarmVille (2011) we saw a whole sub-market of Free2Play (most are Pay2Win after a few hours) gambling games, that is based on gamification, gambling and other casino elements and relies on "addicted players" aka whales.

In 2017 this Free2Play crap swooped over to full prized boxed video games for PS4/XBox/Switch/PC. Bad greedy publisher like Warner Bros, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft risked bad PR and shy away decade long core gamers to earn more from 1% whales - Assassin's Creed Origins, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Need for Speed Payback - known for Free2Play/Pay2Win elements like microtransactions and loot boxes.

It saddens one, reading between the lines the PR news from Ubisoft yesterday, they are pushing back all three mayor releases a few months, because Assassin's Creed Origin was so successful - to add such Free2Play mechanics now also to Far Cry 5, The Crew 2 and other games?!

There are still several great publisher like Bethesda that release boxed games for 99% core gamers, with proper & great hours long single player gameplay, and NO greedy crap.

Something has to give.

On top of $160 you really think it's fair that one should pay even more for microtransactions and lootboxes!? Only whales are happy with that. The big mass of gamers is getting angry and is looking for pitchforks.

There are publishers that release e.g. Witcher 3 with no DRM, and free DLCs for $60 and got very rich doing so. Or Grand Theft Auto V which is very successful already if you just count the singleplayer sales. It's all about the video game and its quality.