Are you living a Netto life?
A Netto life is my blunt image of spending your energy on small savings, shortcuts and grabbing what you can while the big visions disappear. I get bloody frustrated when people would rather cheat their way to small change than create something valuable for themselves and others.
The video is from 1 April 2010. These are my experiences and opinions from back then, including from e-pusher and Amino Virksomhedsbørs. My use of Netto as an image is about pettiness and priorities.
A Netto life starts with the little shortcuts
I wanted to do something fun for 1 April. The idea was a kind of double April Fools’ joke: I wrote on Amino that anyone who said within an hour that they wanted e-pusher 3.0 would get it for free.
I imagined many people would not believe it. But quite a few actually took up the offer. Fair enough, no problem.
Then, after about five minutes, a guy came along with a question: Was it the same one you could get on Pirate Bay?
I took that as saying: I have already stolen it. Can’t you give away something of value? And I thought: What the fuck, man? Imagine posting under your own name and company name in a public forum and sending that message to the person giving his product away for free.
To me, it was like telling a shopkeeper his free goods were not interesting because you had already cleaned out his shop. That is how I experienced the comment.
An offer based on trust was met with silence
I had also sent an offer to a number of people who had not yet bought E-pusher. They could buy the book in three monthly instalments of 500 kroner.
My offer was that if they received the book and did not feel it had the value they expected, they could write back. Then they would have paid the first 500 kroner, and that would be it. If they were happy with it, they would pay the final two instalments.
Thirty people responded to the offer. I had imagined perhaps half would drop out and the other half would keep paying.
Two replied that they wanted to pay. Five replied that they did not, and in my opinion several of them wrote unnecessarily rude messages. They could simply have said it was not what they had expected.
I did not hear a bloody thing from the remaining 23 or so. Not a peep. And I sat there thinking: What the hell is going on? The whole arrangement was based on people giving feedback.
The transaction fee on Virksomhedsbørsen
I experienced something similar on Amino Virksomhedsbørs. Back then, listing a business for sale cost nothing. If you bought a business through the marketplace, you had to pay a transaction fee, which I considered very low compared with using a business broker.
The arrangement depended heavily on people telling us when they had completed a deal. Beforehand, I had a feeling that perhaps 20 per cent would try to cheat, while 80 per cent would pay.
In the video, I say my experience was more like the reverse, and worse: around 95 per cent tried to avoid paying, and five per cent paid. That is my experience and estimate from that period.
Even ordinary businesspeople could deny that they had found each other through the marketplace. They said they had met some other way. I might have spoken to the other party and could see the correspondence in our log, but they kept denying it until they eventually gave in.
What kind of morality is that?
In the video, I ask what the hell kind of morality that is. How can I cheat on my taxes? How can I defraud other people? How can I grab as much as possible for myself? That is the mindset I am reacting to.
I also use a graphic image of a cheap chicken in Netto and a lack of concern for how the animal was treated. It is my polemical criticism of letting a saving of five kroner outweigh everything else.
I wonder whether the security of life in Denmark could play a part. We pay taxes and can start thinking that the rest is not our responsibility. In the US, I experience kindness between ordinary people, even though I do not think the system provides the same care.
My thought is that if a tornado can take away your home, it helps to have been nice to your neighbour. That is my reflection on the differences I experience, not a description of all Danes or Americans.
A computer and an insurance policy
I also talk about a man who said, without seeming embarrassed, that he smashed his Mac laptop onto the floor when he got tired of it. Then he called the insurance company, said he had dropped it and got a new one.
I asked whether that was not a rather poor way to go about things. He thought it felt wrong to smash a Mac that was only a year old. But that was not the only thing I was reacting to. I called it insurance fraud.
His reply was that he paid for the insurance, after all. My reply was that he paid to get help if something went wrong, not to smash the computer himself and tell a different story about it.
Spend your energy on vision and generosity
My point is that people spend an awful lot of energy jumping queues, refusing to give way in traffic, saving small change and cheating wherever they can. Then there is not much left to create something positive.
I also take a sharp political swipe at Dansk Folkeparti in the video. That belongs to my frustration and language at the time. My appeal is to sit down and develop some visions instead.
In my opinion, you do not get rich by saving five kroner in Netto or cheating me. It brings you small change here and there. In return, you can get bad karma and spend your mental energy hoping nobody finds out and that you do not run into the person you cheated.
If all your energy goes into taking the easiest shortcuts, it is hardly surprising that you feel a bit bad about yourself. You could spend that energy on your business, your dreams and positive things for other people.
If you recognise a bit of yourself in this, get the pettiness out of your head. Try being generous and giving something away. Ask how you can enrich other people’s lives instead of how you can grab more for yourself. Go out and do something good, and see what it gives you.
Best wishes, Martin
Couldn’t have put it better meself, sir 🙂