I respectfully disagree. Let’s say you own an acre of land and I am familiar with every stick and stone on that property. I also know what every nearby property has sold for. Property normally sells for a thousand an acre. For whatever reason, I really want that property you own. You offer to sell it to me for a million dollars. I buy it from you.(This is theoretical—I’m not a rich man.) You would have taken much less, but will gladly take a million.
Have you scammed me? I would argue no. Many would call my preferences foolish, but I had free choice and knew what I was getting.
In the same way, we might saying that someone is foolish for buying a weight loss product because Charles Barkley loses weight. But the facts are in front of them. They are willing to pay a little bit more because of Barkley’s endorsement. We can’t question people’s right to their preferences on such matters without questioning the whole idea of freedom itself.
Many people feel this way, and therefore, Barkley’s endorsement is worth a great deal. He is able to meet the preferences of many people for doing very little work. We may not like that the income appeared to exceed the effort, but it was a legal exchange of goods with full knowledge on the part of all involved.
I do not question people’s right to their preferences, if anything, I question their judgment (or lack thereof.) Charles Barkley has as much, meaning little, to do with the product he is promoting as Michael Jordan does with the products that bear his name. In fact, I suspect that Jordan has nothing whatsoever to do with the Air Jordan sneakers. To sober persons those are the facts that should be in front of them when making personal economic decisions.
Alas, we don’t live in the age of sobriety. Ours is the age of marketing and personality cult. I imagine there is a (national) culture somewhere on the planet outside North Korea where celebrity endorsements are not practiced, and if they were, they’d be meaningless, inconsequential, and seen for the absurdity they represent.
Sometimes it takes a simple mind to observe the truth that eludes the Ph.Ds. This is such a case, in my view. To Barkley, and to him personally, the deal is a scam, even if it is legal and makes economic sense to the payer. He doesn’t see any intrinsic value to his personal endorsement.
I cannot disagree with your reasoning or your arguments, I’m trying to see things from Barkley’s point of view.
In this morning’s WSJ there is an article about Lee Child, the author of the Jack Reacher thriller series, that is finally coming to screen (with Tom Cruise as JR.) Child (not his real name) received multiple advances from Hollywood over the years for options on his novels. It all amounted to over a $ million, before the this, the first film went into production. All previous projects collapsed. “Free money,” says Child, just like Barkley says “Scam” of his advances.