Is it valid criticism? Do you focus more on winning the argument than finding the truth?

Well that’s another thing I was wondering. What if you already know what the truth is? I’m open to having my beliefs challenged or reassessing my conclusions about what the truth is, but if that’s not happening, and you’re still confident that your position is correct, then is maintaining your position really such a bad thing? And, what would the alternative be; surely not to pretend to admit defeat when you don’t really believe that? (I feel like that sets a bad precedent)

You don’t know what the true truth is, no one does; you only have your own. You need the truth of others to focus your views closer to the real truth. Say you already know what the truth is closes you off to the possibility of growth regardless of what you say, and makes it pointless to have a debate.

As a hypothetical then. Costco hands out “freebies”. Who pays for the freebies?

The members, Costco, the businesses manufacturing the items being sampled, or a combination of these?

Or would you claim Costco pays for this completely, and that the money that pays for this is completely unrelated to the members, the money just comes from somewhere?

…I encountered someone who made the latter claim. Perhaps the truth is some other third option I have not considered (which I would appreciate you pointing out, I need more practice thinking outside the box), but I highly doubt there is some money box that pays for customer “freebies” that isn’t somehow funded from customer revenue.

So lets make it simpler. Coke spends more on marketing than it does production. Does this make coke more expensive for the average joe? No it makes it cheaper. Why? Because they can sell more coke, and selling larger quantities of things can mean better pricing by either production scale or better deals on ingredients. Back to Costco, samples are a rounding error level of cost for massive gains in sales.

And where did the money come from on the first place? I get that advertising increases sales (literally why anyone would do samples), but it’s not like that money isn’t from previous sales.