Your last paragraph is no longer really correct. The largest rewards have for some time been going to equity plays and financial schemes. You don't build a company for customers but for the next round of investors, and your product is its stock. In the extreme these can be highly clever and polished versions of the "big store" scam where nearly all actual value is flimsy or illusory.
This is because all the money is now at the top. Your customers are the ones who can pay.
A related phenomenon is Internet companies where the user is the product. Advertisers and others who want user data or access to attention have far more money to spend than users. Computing has transformed into a surveillance platform to monetize users because users are not the ones paying for anything.
> The largest rewards have for some time been going to equity plays and financial schemes
The largest rewards are going to people using their money to finance the creation of businesses that create products people want to buy? Yeah that makes sense to me.
You're mixing up levels of indirection. Financing the creation of businesses that create products people want to buy isn't itself an example of "practical products that provide value that the average working class person would want to spend money on".
You can say that what our system rewards is always derived from practical products the average person wants, but that doesn't seem like a useful way to think about things.
Can you explain to me in simple words what you are refuting in your comment?
Nowhere did I suggest that the only way to become rich was to sell practical products. I will state that this is the primary way people acquire vast amounts of money and that whether people become rich via second order and abstract systems such as financing makes no difference. Ultimately the products would not exist without the financial system that was in place.
It's a lot easier to get a $250k position at Morgan Stanley than build a business generating $250k in profit. If more people go the latter route, that's just a matter of a larger denominator, not an indication of what's actually being rewarded.
The last part about value for customers is optional for as long as there are deeper pocketed investors. Given the concentration of wealth at the top that might be a long long time. I also edited my comment to mention user monetization, which is a related phenomenon.
This is because all the money is now at the top. Your customers are the ones who can pay.
A related phenomenon is Internet companies where the user is the product. Advertisers and others who want user data or access to attention have far more money to spend than users. Computing has transformed into a surveillance platform to monetize users because users are not the ones paying for anything.