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"Relative" doesn't count. The cost of McDonald's stays the same or possibly goes down in response.
Did you literally just skip the part of the course on substitute goods?
"Igneous rocks are fucking bullshit." It always surprises me to see that people willingly choose to just deny the mathematics of economics when it conflicts with their political commitments. It probably shouldn't, but it still does.
Who claimed this? I didn't.
The relative cost (as in to the consumer)/price does not stay the same, as it is, well, relative and thus incapable of staying the same in relation to another changing quantity (that is, changes in relative comparisons here are not consensually initiated, same as in every other area). McDonald's does quite potentially have a natural incentive to lower their own prices as a result, but it is not a part of the hypothetical that it does. (Keep in mind that in the original point of the analogy "McDonald's" actually represents real child porn here, which is legally incapable of lowering its "cost/price" (in terms of risk etc.) on its own initiative.)
Did you? I mean there are dozens of ways I could phrase what you're blatantly wrong about in econ 101 terms: that McDonald's and Wendy's share a cross-price elasticity which means that the price of one naturally affects the demand of the other, that Wendy's lowering its price means that the opportunity cost of eating at McDonald's has gone up and the marginal utility of each dollar spent at Wendy's has also gone up, etc., but there's not really any point to that, since, again, it's basic logic, and also basic economics, that a reduction in price increases the quantity demanded.
Relative cost/price is just one way of recognizing this effect in relation to competitors (which again is barely even economic in character as relative comparisons are, also again, basic matters of logical and quantitative analysis that even Fat Tony understands when he does his grocery shopping). (So if I have stated the case previously in less economic terms that seem to superficially contradict the previous, it is only because such a basic issue quite frankly does not require the application of economic reasoning to be resolved.)
I normally simply link Wikipedia articles here to go "Remember this thing?" as opposed to actually recommending them for reading, but I think you might be genuinely served by reading this Wikipedia article as you seem to severely misunderstand the concept.
Or maybe this graph can explain:
Is that clear enough?
This would be a fine remark if what you were saying here wasn't actually what blatantly denied the "mathematics of economics". I will definitely await you finding an economist to endorse your quite frankly bizarre perspective that ratios (which I always considered a pretty well-accepted and established expressions of quantity, self-proving as they are) either don't exist or somehow magically aren't relevant to the consumer optimization that helps generate demand curves, but I have a feeling that I will be waiting a long time.
But yes, it surprises me too, especially on a forum like this, especially when there doesn't seem to be much of a rhetorical point other than... illogic? Innumeracy? I'm genuinely not trying to be uncharitable but I don't know how else to characterize your denial of basic a priori reality here. Seriously, what's going on big guy? How did you develop this odd misconception that prices cannot be compared relatively or that the comparison is behaviorally/economically meaningless and that this is all in fact somehow backed up by academic economics? Who managed to convince you that relative comparison is irrelevant to economics, and what was their reasoning? I'm genuinely curious. Perhaps I'm being trolled? Or you were? Those aren't rhetorical questions. I seriously don't know.
To me, you seemed to be claiming it. In any case I'm glad we agree then.
What happens to the actual cost?
This is not true. There are a whole host of things that can be done. Not least of which is to frustrate legal sanctions through the difficulty of distinguishing real from fake.
Making up a position that I never claimed and then seeing that I don't claim it does not imply that we agree.
What happens to the "actual" (that is, nominal/explicit) cost/price of something in the case of 5000000000% inflation? Nothing, in the case that it isn't explicitly changed. So inflation don't real either right? $10 is $10. After all, calculating inflation is just a relative comparison between the general price levels of two different time periods. And, as you've made it clear, relative doesn't count.
See how silly and very much so not like proper economic scholarship this all sounds?
The PROTECT Act of 2003 already makes fake content that would qualify as child pornography if it were real but is also "virtually indistinguishable" from real content just as illegal. (I think this is foolish and self-defeating as artificially generated child pornography that is indistinguishable from the real thing would almost certainly quickly out-compete and destroy almost all of the real thing, particularly new production of it, but oh well. Policymakers gonna make bad policy.)
Well I'm afraid you may have to restate your position then.
I mean, if you want to posit a completely different scenario than one where the cost of a substitute good is decreased, we could ask that question and try to find an answer. There may or may not be one, and it may be either direction or zero, but it's not going to be relevant for the question at hand. IN THIS DISCUSSION, we're talking about a scenario where the cost of a substitute good is decreased. What happens to the actual cost of the good?
There is a very basic, very clear economics answer to this question, squarely within the domain of proper economic scholarship. Why are you simply avoiding addressing the relevant question?
Sure. You're proposing that we institute a new policy regime, which likely would have impacts to the viability of such things.
You can reread my comments if you'd like. Right now, I'm just trying to get a simple economics answer to a simple economics question. You confused yourself by going off on some random tangent about some random claim that you made up and which I never made.
Why do you refuse to admit that the absolute is not as relevant as the relative? It's a basic principle of human behavior. (I've already admitted the absolute value doesn't change many times... but it doesn't really matter because that was never really related to my point.)
As charitably and nicely as possible, I'm afraid at this point I can only see you as being deliberately obtuse and will have to discontinue this conversation if you can't change course because I don't think we're getting anywhere.
I provided you with multiple economics resources to accomplish that for you. Enjoy.
Because I have a point about absolute that we can't get to, because you keep avoiding acknowledging basic economic facts.
Have you acknowledged that it either doesn't change or goes down? In fact, it almost always goes down. Just admit this painfully obviously true tiny little fact about economics, and we can move on.
Yes, there is an incentive for it to be lowered, as I've also already acknowledged. Of course that applies to actual McDonald's in the hypothetical scenario, but not to child porn, as there is not some Real Child Porn Inc. engaging in free market competition where it isn't subject to its products being illegal.
Whelp, if child porn is magically immune to economics, then we're probably not going to get very far. This is a very common failure mode for people; it happens a lot in drug prohibition discussions, too. (It does undercut your claim that we can analyze the outcome through first-order substitute goods/relative price analysis, though.)
In any event, I think we're pretty much done here. We've found the root of the disagreement. You think CP is immune to economics; I don't. There's probably not much more to say. I mean, I suppose I could say that I think I'm right. Lots of academic economists have very successfully applied traditional economic principles to a variety of black market goods, things that don't have a Black Market Goods Inc. engaging in free market competition. I find those works often persuasive.
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