How does Star Trek’s future society work? A world without money seems alien to the point of impossibility to many people. The difficulty in answering this qu...
In my opinion, I think some people would ascribe value to authentic luxury goods.
For example a bottle of genuine Chateau Picard. Why go to all the trouble of growing, harvesting, and fermenting the grapes when you can just snap at a replicator, *“Wine, Bordeaux, room temperature!” and have it materialize one for you?
Or, in “Captain’s Holiday” Riker asks Picard to purchase for him a Horga’hn while on Risa. Granted, this is a bit of subterfuge to try and get Picard laid, but from Picard’s perspective, Riker is asking for a genuine artifact of something he could likely easily replicate aboard the ship. Compare that to Quark in “Let He Who Is Without Sin” who likely doesn’t care about the authenticity of the experience, and saves a few credits by having Horga’hns already when they on the way, likely replicated on the runnabout ahead of time.
In my opinion, I think some people would ascribe value to authentic luxury goods.
For example a bottle of genuine Chateau Picard. Why go to all the trouble of growing, harvesting, and fermenting the grapes when you can just snap at a replicator, *“Wine, Bordeaux, room temperature!” and have it materialize one for you?
Or, in “Captain’s Holiday” Riker asks Picard to purchase for him a Horga’hn while on Risa. Granted, this is a bit of subterfuge to try and get Picard laid, but from Picard’s perspective, Riker is asking for a genuine artifact of something he could likely easily replicate aboard the ship. Compare that to Quark in “Let He Who Is Without Sin” who likely doesn’t care about the authenticity of the experience, and saves a few credits by having Horga’hns already when they on the way, likely replicated on the runnabout ahead of time.