Post-scarcity economics

[chadwhitacre]

Follow-up to #9.

Open Source is designed for a different world. It presents the first real opportunity in our society to begin to develop a post-scarcity economic model at scale. That likely wants unpacking in a future post.

https://openpath.chadwhitacre.com/2024/the-open-source-sustainability-crisis/#whats-wrong-with-hoops

[chadwhitacre]

I think open source is not sustainable because it is intrinsically at odds with the system it lives within. The article mentions it but doesn’t go deeper into that. Our current economic system rewards profit in the short term over wellbeing and long term sustainability.

Unless the incentives change, I don’t think this can improve for services offered freely. “The path lies through platforms” is patching the issue with charity, and I don’t think it will bring real long term change.

The path lies through an overhaul of our economic systems.

https://lobste.rs/s/sm3t1o/open_source_sustainability_crisis#c_hr3zrw

[chadwhitacre]

I have a job that pays the bills and work on OSS in my free time. I've never wanted a penny for any OSS work I've done for 20 years and i'll keep doing it forever.

If your software ends because you can't get paid, whatever. Something else will replace it by someone like me.

OSS is not a business venture, it's a movement that rises above money. Stop with the greed!

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/19cofb5/comment/kj1u0ao/

[chadwhitacre]

Too high-flown / abstract. Dropping for now.

[vladh]

Helpful resources in the economics literature:

• Open Source software is a positive production externality
• “The Economics of Technology Sharing: Open Source and Beyond” by Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole, particularly p 102–105
• “The Success of Open Source” by Steven Weber, particularly p 149–156 (gift economy, public good, positive network externalities); p 227–231 (property rights); p 231–243 (distributed innovation); p 243–248 (tragedy of the commons, positive externalities, meaningful work)
• “Is There Such a Thing as a Gift Economy?” by Marcel Hénaff. In “Gift Giving and the ‘Embedded’ Economy in the Ancient World” by Gori et al. See p 71–74 (on why “gift economy” can be an oxymoron).
• Open Source is not a gift economy (see Weber p 149–156, Hénaff p 71–74)

(Contact me for the papers.)