Knowledge

Can Hope Be A Profitable Product?

Let’s face it, for the vast majority of people living on earth, life can be very hard and dangerous. For example, according to Statistics Time, nearly 2 people die every second. That’s right, during your 15 minute coffee break, about 1,800 people would have died.

Many suffer their entire life from debilitating sicknesses. There are babies who are born with only half a body, or are conjoined together where at times the only solution would be to surgically kill one of the conjoined twins.

The list of obstacles in life is many. From being born into poverty with ugly looks and a sickly body, many people live miserable lives from the moment they are born to the time of their death.

Death can also come to anyone anytime. Personally, I’ve experienced near death situations many times. From debilitating sicknesses to dangerous accidents, I could have been dead a long time ago.

And if you think that there could be escapes to these dangers like being religious and sheltering in a church or temple, think again, there have been many cases of churches and temples collapsing killing the religious people inside them.

Maybe you think that becoming a billionaire and surrounding yourself with bodyguards can insulate you from the terrors of the world. But there have been billionaires who have been killed right in their own mansions.

With all the hardships and terror many people experience in their lives which seemingly happen for no reason at all or fault of the person seeking answers, there have been individuals and groups that saw an opportunity on this to financially profit or be heard of.

For example, many religions teach the concept of merciful deities/gods and a blissful afterlife. Many religions claim that a person’s suffering in this life would be rewarded by deities/gods in the afterlife.

There are also business and finance coaches that promise worldly wealth. These individuals and groups especially attract those people who are financially handicapped or those who are greedy for more worldly wealth.

There are also romance and image coaches that promise attractiveness and popularity. These individuals and groups especially attract those that are seeking partners and popularity. This is especially relevant in today’s world of social media where relationships are mostly found online and replete with people seeking online fame.

There are also, personal and well-being coaches that promise a blissful life. There are now many people giving life advise or are just regurgitating the advise given by more famous life coaches. It seems everyone in media has something to say or a story to tell about how to find bliss in life.

Religious Professionals and Politicians have existed since the beginning of humanity. These individuals and groups used to be very popular during the old days when they claim to have the answers for such situations as people getting sick and dying or why natural disasters like floods and famine exist.

Today, there are many people who don’t trust or believe what these individuals and groups are saying. This especially rings true for religions. Unlike politicians who can sometimes really address a public’s suffering or need, religions offer no real proof that they can address a public’s suffering or need.

Many detractors of religions and their religious professionals like to point out that religions require “faith” or “belief” which is akin to plain guessing. Many detractors of religions claim that many people like doctors and scientists have solved many of humanity’s previously unsolvable problems while religious professionals do nothing but advise their followers to believe.

Religions are undeniably still popular but are very fragmented. There are over 4,000 officially recognized religions. But this doesn’t count the denominations within each religion. For example, christianity has over 43,000 sub-religions or denominations. Hinduism has over 330 million gods and goddesses.

There are also religions that have been found to be guilty of sex and money crimes among others. In France alone for example, there have been over 330,000 pedophilia cases attributable to catholic/christian priests and religious laymen.

Remember, religious professionals and politicians although given with a lot of degree of public trust because of the social role they do, are humans too and can be both good, neutral, corrupt or plain evil.

Undeniably, for the vast majority of people, their main problem is poverty or the lack of money. This is especially relevant today when salaries have stagnated for ages while there is rampant inflation.

For example, it used to be that it is only the husband who has to work in a household and his salary would meet all of the family’s needs, but today, in many households, even though both husband and wife have jobs, their family can barely make ends meet.

This is the reason why many people fall prey to dubious moneymaking schemes like pyramid schemes and highly speculative and unsecured investments. Despite numerous advice from well-meaning finance professionals, many people are still victimized by “get rich” schemes.

In fact, there have been many supposed “online finance gurus” who have caused the financial ruin of their followers. For example, FTX, the cryptocurrency who lost billions to its investors was heavily endorsed before by many famous online finance gurus who were paid handsome endorsement fees by FTX.

It is a well known fact that many financial products and services sellers hide or downplay the financial risks of the financial products and services they offer. It is advised that one does their due diligence first before buying any financial product or service.

Why do many people want to become rich as discussed previously? For many, they want to be popular and even find love. And many people who have money but are socially inept or don’t have partners are targets of unscrupulous romance and/or image coaches.

One doesn’t need to look far just to see how profitable being a romance or image coach can be. They go by many professions. For example there are advertising agencies and influencers who convince people with low self esteem to buy the products they advertise.

For example, there are beauty product sellers for women who convince women that their products would make them attractive in the eyes of men. Or physical trainers who convince men that their training regimen would make them attractive to women.

Remember how Marlboro fooled people into thinking smoking is cool when it is in fact a deadly product that has been attributed to causing cancer? Many men were conditioned by the Marlboro company to believe that they were projecting the image of a “cowboy”.

There are even YouTubers both male and female who blatantly brag that they can enable a man to get any woman they want if they buy their “course”. Of course, the reality is that no man can hope to attract all the woman he wants, but many still fall for these online advertisements.

Then there are the people who although are successful both financially and socially, are troubled by the question: What is the purpose of life? These are usually people who have gotten tired of their fame and fortune that they question if there’s more to life than just fame and fortune.

If you watch American television shows, you may be familiar with the show Silicon Valley. One of the main characters is Gavin Belson who is the CEO of a successful tech company.

He has in his employ, a confidante who masquerades as a guru or life coach who in reality is a selfish and corrupt person. This guru likes to tell Gavin philosophical words which sounds deep in meaning but are practically worthless as an advise or solution to Gavin’s problems.



We could even add fortune tellers and mystics to the mix of these people. There are people who confide in gurus, fortune tellers, mystics and the likes in the hopes that these people would solve their problem.

Usually, their hapless victims would be dazzled by the theatrics and philosophical words of these so-called “wise men” that they would follow their advise which often involves giving these “wise men” monetary or other forms of compensation.

Unfortunately, the individuals and groups previously discussed are just a small sampling of people who give hope to other people in exchange for monetary or other forms of compensation.

For example, there are the illegal recruiters and the immigration consultants who promise a better life to their victims once they recruit them for a job or send them to another country. For example, Mexican gangs have been known to promise good jobs and life in the US to the Mexicans they smuggle along the US border.

Unfortunately, for the most part, many of these individuals and groups sell an intrinsic value, and intrinsic things by their very nature cannot be measured. For example, the market for health supplements is fast growing despite the fact that there is no conclusive proof that they really greatly make a person healthy.

There would also be people who claim that “religious” relics like amulets and ointments cured them of their sickness when it can never be proven that these religious relics did. There are even people who claim that their faith alone cured them of sickness but again, this cannot be proven.

Unfortunately, the law and society in general are lax and do not usually police these individuals and groups who sell hope unscrupulously. This is because as said, these groups and individuals sell an intrinsic product whose effectiveness cannot be measured.

But sometimes the law does. For example, there are religions who forbid their followers to seek medical attention claiming that their deity/god would cure them. These religions have caused the deaths of many sick children who could have been saved if they were taken to doctors.

In these cases, the law intervenes and have put the parents/carers of the now dead children to court were they are sometimes punished if they ever are. There have been parents who are repeat offenders. Killing not only one but many of their children by refusing to take them to doctors.

Selling hope is by itself not bad or illegal. In fact, a lot of people need hope in their lives to keep them going. According to the WHO or World Health Organization, there is more than 1 person who die every minute because of suicide.

This means that during your eight hours of sleep, about 500 hundred people have committed suicide. This also means that there are about 1,500 people who commit suicide on a daily basis. As you can see, hope is a much needed product by many people.

By law, you have no case if you can’t prove your accusations or claims. But as already said, there are people who sell hope whose effectivity is largely intrinsic by nature. That is why if you have to sell hope, make sure that you have proof to back up your hope claims.

For example, you can sell hope by telling the real life stories of successful people who overcame great obstacles or people who have undergone hardships and survived. These hope products can be very profitable. There have been people who became millionaires by merely selling hope by telling inspiring true to life stories.

Also, make sure that you’re not inflating the story. Unfortunately, there are people who in their desire to make their hope products more sellable or marketable, inflate their hope stories including their effectivity. For example, there are financial consultants who promise outlandish returns on investment just so people would buy their scam financial products.

And lastly, don’t only offer hope like success stories but also offer solutions to people’s problems. For example, there are politicians who in order to get elected, promise that they would lift people off poverty when in truth they hardly have a plan for doing so.

As can be seen, there are plenty of individuals and groups from all facets of life who sell hope. Hope is an intrinsic product but is very marketable. There is a lot of potential market for your hope products and services.

This is because as have been discussed, there are a lot of people who need and are willing to buy hope products and services. You can also sell hope but just make sure that you are doing it the right way by not selling empty promises or unproven solutions to people’s problems.

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