You could say that none of it was "wasted", people earned their salary there (I assume) and learned something, that led to consumption and investments elsewhere.
Unless someone literally burnt the money, it did some good.
Then again, yea, $2.4B is just ridiculous, wonder what Jeri Ellsworth and Tilt5 (https://www.tiltfive.com) could have done with those resources...
"people earned their salary" and "learned something" aren't great arguments.
Building a bridge that collapses minutes after construction also entails workers earning salaries, and perhaps learning something. that still doesn't mean it's a good use of funds, it's waste. you want the investment to create actual value for someone.
People have tendency to abandon this line argumentation immediately when it's applied to something they admire and have been hyped up. Wasted money was actually R&D.
Example that gets almost everyone: Space Shuttle.
It was supposed to be reusable space truck that reduces cost. It was several times more expensive than conventional approach with non-reusable rockets and shuttle. It was infrequently used. It drained NASA budged from anything productive. Even those combined manned+cargo missions could have been achieved cheaper with double launch. It was objectively failure based on the goals and purpose of the project.
They developed so much new technology and inspired people. It was simply great piece of engineering and PR. We learned a lot.
That being said, I believe the SLS gave many more spin-offs than the Magic Leap
I wonder if there were missions that would not be possible without it (maybe the Hubble launch and the AMS launch and installation) though most likely they would be adapted to work without it.
Another way to say this is that VCs could just have donated money without spending 8 years spinning the wheels. Those employees would have been paid and the opportunity cost of spinning wheels would have not occurred, instead these people would be doing something more productive and adding value to the GDP.
So, I agree with you. It is a waste. It is a waste of human hours that was spent with nothing to show in return.
> Unless someone literally burnt the money, it did some good.
Hey, don't compare the fraud of Magic Leap with the straightforward honesty and artistic legitimacy of K Foundation Burn a Million Quid [1] which produced not only art, but also heat and light, and at a fraction the cost.
It did create something bad: it made it tremendously harder for tech companies that might actually be able to produce some good to get funding because, for every investor other than the one's who're still throwing money at Magic Leap, this is a gigantic warning sign.
Unless someone literally burnt the money, it did some good.
Funny you say that because it is exactly the opposite that seems true from an economic point of view : if they burned the money, they would have reduced the money supply, thereby increasing for everyone a bit their power purchase. Whereas employing hundreds of people and buying resource for nothing is completely wasteful.
The looser is always those spending the 2.4B of course, but the two have different economic impact (the first one benefiting everyone, the second one only a few people being employed)
Spending that money in any fashion leads to equal amounts of consumption and investments elsewhere (indirect spending). So we can discount it from an oppotunity cost analysis of how the money is better spent, leaving us with the common sense conclusion that investing 2.4bn in something useless is indeed a waste of 2.4bn's of resources.
In fact, burning the money is actually better than spending the money on something unproductive - the former doesn't actually consume resources that could be used better. Burning money is essentially the same as giving it to the govt to spend as they would be free to print an amount equivalent to the burnt resources while keeping inflation as it was before.
Unless someone literally burnt the money, it did some good.
Then again, yea, $2.4B is just ridiculous, wonder what Jeri Ellsworth and Tilt5 (https://www.tiltfive.com) could have done with those resources...