Diseconomies of scale certainly aren't unique to software, and the author sensibly notes "individual knowledge". One of the main effects of protectionist and i

Diseconomies of scale certainly aren't unique to software, and the author sensibly notes "individual knowledge". One of the main effects of protectionist and interventionist policies has been related to them. A domestic firm starts to rot, unemployment prospects are rising and a sense of national preservation starts to set in. Thus, in the short term, tariffs are levied, subsidies are made and some macro notion of "stability" or "optimality" is reached. The long term costs are the artificial delaying of the onsets of diseconomies of scale with state and business expansion leading to symbiotic interests. Then people complain about Big Business fucking them over. (The fact that the author quote Keynes makes this all the more ironic. Keynes-the-man wasn't objectionable, but the neoclassical synthesis/"pop Keynesianism" of his disciples Paul Samuelson and John Hicks did influence government policy in a negative way, as noted in James M. Buchanan's Democracy in Deficit.)