are we victims or enablers?

Freedom Scientific is a fine example of the Capitalist approach to
developing a useful product. Capitalism begins with a beneficial
concept, like a screen reader for the blind; develops it, both through
innovative research and development, and through the pirating of
development being done elsewhere; risks capital investment of its own
money as well as the money of others; and finally markets a product
that quickly becomes the market standard.
But if that were as far as it went, we might say that Capitalism
really works for the good of All. But once Freedom Scientific had a
major market, it did not reduce its profit margin to a reasonable
level. It quickly moved from the "Beneficial Product" side, to the
"Exploitation" side, ending up
exploiting the very population it initially set out to benefit.
Capitalism is the handmaiden of Greed. When the bottom line is
Profit, just who do we think will pay the price? It is always those
who believed they would benefit.
Under Capitalism, the goal of a new corporation/company is to find or
develop an unmet need, fill it and then continue finding ways of
maintaining and expanding control of the product/service.
Freedom Scientific has developed a captive market, consisting of both
agencies and schools serving the blind, but a vast number of low
income blind people who struggle each year to afford the upgrades to
JAWS. While we who are being taken, cry out that it is
unconscionable, Freedom Scientific just smiles as it heads for the
bank. Freedom Scientific has so muddied the waters that it can't see
that it is no longer serving the needs of the blind, but is actually
exploiting them.
But we must not lose sight of why this happens. Freedom Scientific,
regardless of what they told us and themselves in the beginning, set
out to fill an unmet need for the purpose of making a profit. But
because they were looking to make a financial killing, they lost sight
of the part of their own propaganda that said they were meeting a
need.
Freedom Scientific, under Capitalism, is doing everything "by the
book". Look around you. Every successful company is using some
variation of the Freedom Scientific Method.
A prime example is the Oil Industry.
We can all look back to that first oil well and trace the growth of
the industry. It began by providing support to existing services.
Cheap heat, oil lanterns, use in lubricating equipment, and then
expanding to find other uses. Not only looking for other uses, but
growing strong enough to control the direction of our culture. We had
to have private transportation, we needed to have faster airplanes to
get to where we were going, sooner. We "found" new and wonderful uses
for this slimy, slick, smelly product. "Black Gold", it became known
as. But "Black Death" is a more realistic name.
We can lay our human troubles at the feet of Capitalism, but as long
as we do nothing to seize control, we become more than mere victims,
we are enablers.
By the way, I quit upgrading to JAWS nearly two years ago. I have
NVDA on my laptop, and it seems to be working as well as JAWS. A warm
"thank you" to the NVDA developers. They are a silver lining on an
otherwise Black Capitalist Cloud.

Carl Jarvis(still looking for a pot of kindness at the end of the rainbow)