What is marketing?

[Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters]

|> The neutral word that Alex is looking for is 'promotion', which has a
|> subtle but important difference from the dirty word.

Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> wrote previously:
|Nope -- it's "marketing" as defined in textbooks of economics

Ahh... that begs the question[*].  I do not believe that Economics is
the relevant field to consult as to the purpose of the python.org
website.  Economists give only economic answers to questions, and that's
not the particular song-and-dance that interests me (FWIW, I've
published in an Economics journal, and taken graduate economics
courses--albeit suspiciously lefty ones--so my eschewal comes from
something other than simple ignorance).

If we decide our textbook should be one about Sociology, or Psychology,
or Anthropology, or Communications, the false generality for the term
'marketing' evaporates.  IOW, I'm more interested in what Thorstein
Veblen would say than in what Ludwig von Mises would say :-).  Or for
that matter, I'd rather consult Erving Goffman.

Yours, Lulu...

[*] Has anyone else noticed how horribly misused this phrase has
become... including in a televised ad series by Adobe for Acrobat.

--
Keeping medicines from the bloodstreams of the sick; food from the bellies
of the hungry; books from the hands of the uneducated; technology from the
underdeveloped; and putting advocates of freedom in prisons.  Intellectual
property is to the 21st century what the slave trade was to the 16th.