In "Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution" Sam Bowles notes that the customs and economics of open source software have more in common with smal

In "Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution" Sam Bowles notes that the customs and economics of open source software have more in common with small-scale societies (99% of human history) than capitalism: The project that began with the "Fable of the Bees may be of even less practical relevance in the future. The reason is that the technologies and social interactions of the modern economy increasingly depart from these canonical assumptions. Direct noncontractual interactions with positive feedbacks arise increasingly in modern economies, as information-intensive team production replaces assembly lines and other technologies more readily handled by contract, and as difficult to measure services usurp the preeminent role -- as both outputs and inputs --- once played by measurable quantities like kilowatts of power and tons of steel. Danny Quah (1996) calls the modern system of production “the weightless economy.” The key characteristics of the information-intensive economy are generalized increasing returns, with near zero marginal costs in many cases, along with the fact that most information is either not subject to complete and enforceable contracts, or will be inefficiently allocated if it is. ... The information-intensive economy of the future may more closely resemble the economy of the mobile foraging band in human prehistory, rather than the economy of grain and steel that displaced it. Pursuing good ideas with practical applications is a costly and uncertain project, much like hunting large game. Success is rare, but its fruits are immensely valuable. The private appropriation of the prize is both difficult to accomplish and socially wasteful, for the foregone benefits to the those excluded from access to the prize far outweigh the gains to the individual appropriator to be had by excluding others. A new drug or a new software application is not so different in this respect from an antelope. Thus it is not surprising that the system of prestige and norms of sharing in some parts of the modern information-intensive economy -- those involved in open source software, for example -- in many ways parallel the culture of the foraging band. (page 500)