So an interesting question, which I thought would be perfect for this board. This relates to personal responsibility in business dealings.
I sell virtual currency to a game on eBay. Through this auction system, I found a person willing to buy directly, skipping eBay as the intermediary. This person routinely spends $90 a week on currency. At one point they mentioned they would have to buy less currency for a few weeks, so they could buy food.
Now here's the interesting issue. In the game there is a gambling system, which the buyer uses the currency in.
So in my mind, effectively, I'm providing currency to a gambling addict. Now granted they seem to at least prioritize their spending for necessities over pleasure, but do I have a responsibility to stop selling to this person?
As an assumption I've made when analyzing the situation is that this person will buy from someone else, if I don't sell to them.
Comments/opinions?
Unless you know the buyer personally, you should assume nothing. The person may really need food, or may be trying to manipulate you into providing them lower prices. They might be a grandmother on welfare or a teenager on $500/week allowance.
ReplyDeleteGranted, the person is probably telling the truth, but net-based communication is much more easily manipulated than face-to-face communication (ie the pop-culture hit 'To Catch a Predator').
Assuming you are not concerned with the ethics of others or the medium by which the marketplace brought you together, there would yet be other reasons.
1. You are not providing essentials to this person.
2. You do not (I assume) own a monopoly on this virtual currency.
First, if you were providing energy, food, or shelter, there might be a moral dilemma to provide or not provide your services (subsidizing farmers by paying them to leave fields fallow keeps prices abnormally high and keeps fields in good condition through crop rotation).
Second, (and especially since this is an e-business) you do not own a monopoly on this virtual currency, so their is no moral dilemma on pricing this particular person out of necessities. If your price is too high, the person can go somewhere else. The buyer must find your price to be reasonable, otherwise they would go elsewhere.
Wow. Too long-winded. To summarize, the best world is the one which leaves us to our own devices. Providing full disclosure should be the extent of responsibility for business owners. If government decides that business practices are detrimental to the greater good, then they bear the responsibility for stopping said practices (again assuming a world with full disclosure). None of the aforementioned virtual currency issues fall under these points, so practice away, conscious cleared.
For the record, I wouldn't want an untrained Internet stranger to make hasty diagnoses and life decisions for me.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if you're right and he really is in a bad situation and you have the ability to avert further harm, walking away without changing anything is hardly morally exonerating.
You might consider talking to him about his situation. Recommend something like Gambler's Anonymous. There's little else that would be appropriate.