Yeah, that marriage situation can be totally tough. If you're going through that, I feel for you. I can relate, but then who of us has ever really picked the "right" person to marry the first time around? Sure, some get lucky. But often our wapred childhoood expecdtatiosn contaminate the idea of a perfect match with something that feels familiar but is actually wrong for us, or worse, just abusive.

Anyway, in this case I think the analogy is a little overblown because the stakes are so different, but is revealing. You can way more easily divest of a software product than a marriage (presumably, tho that may differ locally). But, as in marriage, there's a interesting nuance: the stories we tell ourselves about what went wrong are so often one-sided, which lacks empathy for how the other person is probably just doing their best. A similar empahty mismatch with the entitlement of consumers who don't comprehend that the value they expect a person to provide them for free, should actually be compensated. As in, a free exchange.

That someone might confuse those could tell you 'something about them.' Or it could just be an honest mistake, on their part. That we're all likely to make.

Still the trigger to ape-brained fairness-wiring seems similar, and embodies that same one way empathy. Free and fair exchange, in commerce and relationships, should be based on more of a mutual empahty.

Thanks for bringing it up!

I’ve read about this concept the Indians have called “izzat” which probably explains why they have arranged marriages. You can imagine the deceitful games that might be played on unsuspecting brides and bridegrooms if one doesn’t find deceitful games out of bounds morally; arranged marriages address that.

Arranged marriages are unpopular because we value choice. For the same reason we, westerners, abhor monopolies that transform society, wreck age old institutions, remove choice and limit access to what once was free.