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0 pointsRetric9y ago0 comments

A man is not fungible, but 600,000,000 men are.

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Either a good is fungible or it isn't (well, a good has an elasticity, it's not binary of course), it doesn't depend on the supply. Consumer choices are a function of elasticity and location on the supply/demand curve (and many more things ofc, but that's not relevant for this point). In other words, supply nor demand are a component of fungibility.

RetricOP9y ago

Books, Music, Movies, TV, etc are all treated as fungible commodities due to the wide range of options. In much the same way that Meat and Coal have a wide range of quality and unique traits, but again the market has no problem dealing in bulk purchases.

Granted, this often breaks down such as with the last mortgage crash but no abstraction is actually true.

roel_v9y ago

What? No, nobody treats movies or music as fungible. Hence the extreme importance of A&R's, for example.

And when you buy beef in bulk, that doesn't mean that they'll send you whatever meat they have on hand, nor is that what 'fungible' even means.

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roel_v9y ago

RetricOP9y ago

Granted, this often breaks down such as with the last mortgage crash but no abstraction is actually true.

roel_v9y ago

What? No, nobody treats movies or music as fungible. Hence the extreme importance of A&R's, for example.

And when you buy beef in bulk, that doesn't mean that they'll send you whatever meat they have on hand, nor is that what 'fungible' even means.

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j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse