For example, I pay for the satisfaction of venting my uninformed opinions to up to 200 individuals every day through the Seven Deadly Sins Homepage. There are numerous costs for this privilege, both explicit and hidden: the monthly payoff to Web 2010 to maintain that oh-so-legitimizing deadlysins.com address, the charge to my Internet service provider for dial-in service, as well as the income I could be generating in the time I spend working on the page, by getting a paper route or holding up liquor stores.
I ask nothing in return. But these costs add up, and so I find myself looking for new opportunities to make money off my efforts, to capitalize and market my labor. Witness the new Books and Research section of the Homepage, the result of lengthy and tense negotiations with the top brass at Amazon.com. I get up to 15% of the price of every book that the viewing public purchases after clicking through from the page. Easy money, I thought. Having installed the necessary code, I sat back and waited for the bucks to flow in. But business has been.. slow. Clearly a more marketable commodity is needed.
Obviously, the answer is pornography. Once relegated to the back shelves of convenience store magazine racks, porno has finally found its element. As you read this, tens of thousands of sexual images, stories, video and sound are coursing through the ether around us, bound for the eager, anonymous eyes of online pleasure-seekers. More money than we can collectively imagine is changing hands for the privilege of quietly, shamelessly accessing the naughty secrets of human desire. The porno industry has probably done more than Microsoft to advance widespread usage of the Net.
The people have spoken. They want sex, or at least downloadable images of sex. They're perfectly willing to spend their hard-earned capital in exchange for this commodity. From the model to the mouse-click, the entire enterprise is a series of transactions between individuals marketing their skills.
Some people close to me have implied, in word and deed, that they find this morally objectionable. As a deeply moral person, I respect their beliefs on the matter. Let me emphasize that my plan to become an online pornographer is not merely the result of my own Covetousness and greed, but an attempt to more efficiently convert my labor investment into capital that will ultimately be used to purchase pleasure for a large number of people. I am seeking opportunities to fund the marketable enjoyment experienced at no cost to readers of this page. I'm spreading the wealth. I'm doing it for you. In short, it's a necessary Evil.
Labor, the product of the human body, is a commodity. We sell ourselves every day. We buy the time and attention of the waiter, the police, the staff of the Internet service provider. In essence, we buy an irreplaceable segment from the lifespan of an intelligence that will someday cease to exist. It could be the time spent to click the shutter of a camera, or it could be the period that a worker overseas took to assemble your sneakers. Your paycheck, and the power it gives you to make decisions about your life, is received in trade for every moment of precious existence you handed over to the person who signed on the bottom line. If you object, then help find a way to stop buying and selling life on the open market.