The drug dealer gives you a free hit because it is profitable for him in the long term for you to be addicted to his product, not because he is your friend.

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calebkaiser 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's weird to me how often this analogy gets used because:

1. In most cases, like this one, the product isn't heroin.

2. Drug dealers don't actually do that.

	▲	denkmoon 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Are you sure the product isn't heroin? If we take it away, there's a bunch of people around here at least that will definitely experience withdrawal.
	▲	gnabgib 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		What? (1) Yes.. it's never that [stupid economics, they don't want their purchasers to die.. might as well sell fentanyl], (2) it's always that [hardly any way to propose alternatives.. within the scope of not killing the customer]

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goosejuice 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Another way to look at it is they are running a business. It's not even close to gambling for example.

	▲	denkmoon 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Running businesses at massive losses with the expectation of making that money back by being _the_ monopoly on this technology.