this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Also it's not like the workers typically get the long tail of profits. Most labor is only paid a salary, and the "owners" get to keep profiting. Workers should be entitled to the profits of their labor.
So kinda like royalties
I would be a bit careful with this.
In many ways having it be a transaction (work x hours get paid x dollars) is nice. I means that the employee knows exactly what they are getting upfront.
I'm not the person you replied to at any point in the thread, and I agree that there is potential for a slippery slope in a similar way it happens with tipping culture.
But my understanding of the original comment was that workers should also get a share of profit after the game is released, with no changes to the salary they received during the production stage which is just covering for labor as it happens everywhere else. Upfront payment and royalties, proportional to profit. (This type of arrangement is unusual but exists, or used to exist, in publishing, for both authors and illustrators).
The idea wasn't to change it one for the other but hypothetically add it, but we know greed won't allow that to happen, which is used as a moral point for piracy: you are not hurting the people who did the hard work at all
But this just isn't how it works. These people aren't paid minimum wage. This will definitely be played in salary negotiation as part of the compensation and will almost certainly result in less base salary.
So now the studio is shifting some risk onto the workers.
We are not talking about what the most realistic case scenario would be if something like royalties were implemented. Of course companies will find ways to screw their workers, for example, with speculative profit as part of payment etc etc. I'm with you in that yes that's what's most likely to happen if it were applied in our society in this day and age and in some countries it would go worse than in others. We get that.
The whole point of this comment thread was what isn't happening, therefore, which morals or ethical considerations one doesn't need to mind because of that. It's not that "this payment style would be better if implemented", rather, " if payment worked that way, pirating would be harmful to the workers"
You could also have salaries 🤷
The problem to solve is a handful of people who aren't really doing much work get most of the profits. There may be other solutions.
I don't know if I really buy "not doing much of the work". Middle management maybe but to own and run a company is serious work. Especially starting a company is huge risk. So if you take the risk you get a lot of the reward.
IMHO ways to help even this out are:
I would also like to see some way to change the natural goal of a company from "make as much money as possible" to "bring as much value to people as possible", but I think these two things would be a good start.
I agree with you. Something I noticed and wanted to add: When I mention UBI to people, a lot of them are hearing it like a guarantee that everyone gets enough income to be happy or be comfortable.
I have found that people who interpret basic income in this way tend to become strongly opposed to UBI on the grounds that it could never be funded and would lead to social collapse due to limited resources.
Idk what you picture, but I imagine a person on UBI affording to eat rice and beans in a studio apartment somewhere in a low cost-of-living and low property value geography (though perhaps among pleasant neighbors and like minded folks).
So I kind of think the name "Universal Basic Income" needs to be reworked so it sounds more harsh, almost like a necessary evil. Something like "Rock Bottom Income", idk.
I don't have the perfect answer, but do you think conservatives would get on board if it was like "The poors can't complain, they can take their complaints straight to Bean Town if they don't like the wages" or do you think they'd still find it unpalatable?
If you own the company (or a lot of shares), you gain wealth by doing literally nothing if the company's value increases. On top of probably just keeping the profits. Plus the "use my stock as collateral, give me a low interest personal loan, that's not taxed as income lol" wealth back.
I'm not talking so much about the petit bourgeoisie that's working hard every day making donuts to sell. I'm talking about big C Capital that buys something and just takes the profits.
The CEO at my old job can't code. He can't do UI design. He doesn't do sales or customer service. He sometimes talks to other rich assholes to fundraise, but mostly he makes questionable decisions and hurts morale. But if the company goes big, he'll get filthy rich and the people who actually built the thing will not.
That said, higher taxes on the wealthy (plus closing loopholes like the loan thing) would help. So would universal basic income.
It's funny because conservatives cry about "welfare queens" that just take money for nothing, but it's the rich who can do that. If you have a few million, you can just coast on investments. Little to no risk. Once again, projection.
Ironically that might boost productivity. And would lead to something closer to meritocracy
But then what incentive would keep the owners owning everything?
How would you quantify ongoing projects where workers come and go and each of their specific contribution might not be easy to measure? Do they all also assume financial responsibility for any failures or lawsuits?
Probably some sort of collective ownership, profit sharing, with negotiation and consensus building. Other people more well read than me have spent a lot of time thinking about this. My starting position is that the standard capitalist model of "I pay you $10 to make a widget, and I sell it for $1000 and keep all the profits" is not okay.
Do the owners assume financial responsibility now? I think that's what LLCs and other corporate structures are for- to shield individuals from liability and responsibility.