People have come to suspect any information that is attached to money. If advice comes at a price, it is hard to know whether the advice is for the recipient’s welfare or for the financial benefit of the advisor. Similar wariness is wise when products are recommended and the person doing the recommending is financially benefited from their sale.

If company A recommends company A products, consumers are naturally cautious. To remove this resistance some companies claim that they make no profit or find a spokesperson who is supposedly above the financial fray. This then is used in marketing to lead people to believe the products have superior quality untainted by the profit motive.

The no-profit claim should be taken with a grain of salt because it is very easy to structure the affairs of a company so it appears non-profit. All that is necessary is to pay high enough salaries and all profits can vaporize. The “company” may not be making a profit but the people in it most certainly are.

An expert used as an advisor may receive a commission or royalty from sales but put that money into some philanthropic-sounding organization he or she may control. The expert can then claim that they receive no personal compensation for their advice. But, of course, the organization that is under their direction and receiving the royalties may be paying rent, buying cars, paying other expenses and wages that relieves the expert of those costs, thus freeing more of his own money for his personal use.  He or she would most certainly be financially benefited from such an arrangement.

In a capitalistic society virtually all information and products benefit someone, even if indirectly. That is the fact of the matter. That does not mean that there is no good advice or beneficial products. Of course there are. But the way to find them is not by taking at face value any claim of freedom of bias or non-profitability of products.

Profit in itself is not bad. It is what permits society to function and people to live. Virtually every working person profits every time they receive their wage. So the problem is not profit, it is trying to determine whether the advice or products we buy are of true merit. We do that based upon reason, evidence, and experience. If those giving advice or recommending products cannot provide that, then there is certainly no reason to be swayed by their ploy of no-profit.