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That argument has always felt like it came out of economics 101. Maybe in a world where everyone is a rational economic actor motivated only by maximizing profi
by plokiju 8y ago
That argument has always felt like it came out of economics 101. Maybe in a world where everyone is a rational economic actor motivated only by maximizing profits, people wouldn't make anything new without a patent.
In the real world, open source and open research communities have no shortage of innovation, even without being able to place artificial blocks on the competition. It turns out, creator's motivations are more complicated than making money alone.
In my opinion, innovation might move a bit slower without the money injections from VCs who can be confident they can get patents and a safe ROI, but I think we'd be better off in the long run if we allowed creators to build off past ideas without the fear of being sued.
- setr 8y agoEven with rational actors, it doesn't really hold. You still have to innovate, because if you go stagnant and the competition does innovate, you're fucked. At the very least, you have to be capable of constantly updating your copies to match the competition, and you'd at best reach parity (unless the cost of original r&d was enormous, and time/cost to copy was minimal), which won't maximize profit.