&gt; <i>Fundamentally the best way to make money should be - and in my view largely is - by creating value for your clients.</i><p>Should be - yes. And to a great extent it was - that&#x27;s why capitalism is undeniably responsible for propelling (most of) us into the age of prosperity we now enjoy. But I disagree creating (social, not just economic) value for clients is the best way to make money now. Profit and value motives are increasingly misaligned. It is to be expected - we&#x27;ve picked up all low-hanging fruits years ago. Now the money is being made on gaming the system, on exploiting the fact that profit is only a proxy for value.<p>Companies nowadays know that they can get away with almost anything because the market has <i>very</i> short memory. They also know they can sell any kind of bullshit with enough advertising, and that marketing expenses have much better ROI than actually delivering a working product. In contemporary marketplace, providing <i>honest value</i> to customers is not a competitive strategy - hence less and less of it happens (it&#x27;s painfully visible in our industry - it&#x27;s why most Internet startups are bullshit).