I always found the phrase vote with your wallets strange. Does that mean larger wallets get larger votes and smaller wallets smaller ones…?
I would say don’t vote with your wallet. Rather get out and actually vote in an election, write your representatives and senators, call them, make appointments with their offices and go visit them to discuss your concerns.
Everyone seems to have this learned helplessness that if they don’t buy something that it will somehow change, rather than just engaging the democratic process to effect laws that shape the society they want to see.
Engaging with the democratic process means changing laws, which requires the consent of lawmakers, so either deep pockets or an extremely broad consensus of citizens who care enough about the issue to vote on it. Those laws might also have negative side effects that we didn't anticipate, and changing the law once it's enacted is very difficult. This makes this strategy very high cost and unlikely to have the desired effects.
Market solutions require no coordinated action, no new laws that could have unintended side effects, and is much more likely to succeed. Products and companies fail all the time because they don't offer something people want to buy! This has a much higher success rate as a strategy and is also easier: don't like the product? Don't buy it.
Obviously this isn't universally true: there are things we have to buy, like food and shelter, and so those industries ought to be more carefully regulated (and they are!), but we're talking about video games, which are a luxury leisure purchase.
> Engaging with the democratic process means changing laws, which requires the consent of lawmakers…
You have it wrong, lawmakers are elected by the consent of their constituents to represent them. In a democracy people are not at the mercy of lawmakers but rather lawmakers are employed by the people.
> Those laws might also have negative side effects that we didn't anticipate, and changing the law once it's enacted is very difficult.
This nihilism is overrated, of course people have to change things and should change them rather than refusing to do anything because of some “fear” of change.
> Market solutions require no coordinated action, no new laws that could have unintended side effects, and is much more likely to succeed.
If the market was perfect and worked how you described this conversation wouldn’t even be happening.
> Obviously this isn't universally true: there are things we have to buy, like food and shelter, and so those industries ought to be more carefully regulated (and they are!), but we're talking about video games, which are a luxury leisure purchase.
No, we’re talking about ownership and which class of people in society are allowed to “own” goods.
> Does that mean larger wallets get larger votes and smaller wallets smaller ones…?
If it is something that can purchased multiple times from the same wallet, then sure, why not. But in most cases of purchases, one is all someone wants/needs. This would mean that the smaller wallet has the same voting power as the larger wallets.
I always found the phrase vote with your wallets strange. Does that mean larger wallets get larger votes and smaller wallets smaller ones…?
I would say don’t vote with your wallet. Rather get out and actually vote in an election, write your representatives and senators, call them, make appointments with their offices and go visit them to discuss your concerns.
Everyone seems to have this learned helplessness that if they don’t buy something that it will somehow change, rather than just engaging the democratic process to effect laws that shape the society they want to see.