312ag16

There is this movie "Mickey Blue Eyes" where Hugh Grant play an auctioneer whose girlfriend is the daughter of a mafia member.

The boss of the mafia org then forces the auctioneer to offer worthless paintings and forces various people to bid high. The paintings are just required so that something exchanges hands.

This is much of the software industry in a nutshell, except that no coercion is required. Just something needs to exchange hands.