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A comment on Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Netflix. Parent comment

Re:Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Ne... by ISL on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @02:10PM (#24123628)
It does if McDonalds decides that it wishes to dump burgers. The ask price would fall to $0.

The market will correct very quickly, as competitors will immediately head over to McDonalds to purchase $\infty$ burgers at $0, killing MCD dead in seconds.

The moment McDonalds applies a purchase limit (Free burgers! Limit 5 per customer), the burgers have non-zero cost, as they require a person's time in order to purchase.

If McDonalds does have enough capital to buy long-term customers and kill off competition with free burgers, perhaps they should consider it. I assume that they've considered such a strategy on occasion and concluded that it isn't worth it. Burgers are probably worth more than $0 to McDonalds, too.

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Re:Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Ne... by jefftk on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @02:16PM (#24123715)
> If McDonalds does have enough capital to buy long-term customers and kill off competition with free burgers, perhaps they should consider it.

I'm pretty sure they should not consider it, because it is generally illegal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing

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Re:Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Ne... by snowwrestler on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @02:29PM (#24123922)
Keeping in mind where this thread started... I'm not aware of a similar law that prohibits employers from overpaying their employees, though.
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Re:Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Ne... by stale2002 on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @02:26PM (#24123887)
> I'm pretty sure they should not consider it, because it is generally illegal.

It is really not. At least in America. In America, where laws are based on consumer benefit, it is extremely difficult to prosecute companies for having too awesome of a service, that they give away for too good of a price, in a way that helps consumers too much.

It really just isn't something that gets prosecuted, except in absolutely exceptional circumstances.

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Re:Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Ne... by ghaff on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @02:36PM (#24124062)
Leaving aside any skirting of regulations also involved, is the government going to prosecute Uber or Lyft because they're losing boatloads of money and therefore obviously priced too low?
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Re:Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Ne... by stale2002 on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @02:42PM (#24124148)
This is a great example, actually. Because Uber is no stranger to being prosecuted by the government. That happened a bunch of times, when they were operating as a taxi company, without following taxi laws (before they got those laws changed, of course, lol).

But of all the things that Uber has gotten in trouble with, do you know what they have not been prosecuted for? They have not been prosecuted for selling taxi services for too low of a price to consumers.

Breaking taxi laws = yep prosecuted

But price dumping = nope, not in trouble for that.

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Re:Developer won’t get hit by a bus, they’ll get hired by Ne... by ghaff on Tuesday August 11, 2020 @02:34PM (#24124025)
McDonald's (among many other places--especially those with many lower income customers) certainly do have loss leaders. I don't eat at McDonald's but I assume something like the $1 $2 $3 menu functions as something to get people in the door after which they or their friends may buy high-priced/margin items as well.
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