4 ms·

From personal experience, which I know is not a great indicator, but if it holds true then it would be the society I want to live in (which biases me to the ide

From personal experience, which I know is not a great indicator, but if it holds true then it would be the society I want to live in (which biases me to the idea). I like to build, a lot. I'm obsessive about it. I would like to build something useful, have it picked up freely, then move on to the next thing that I think would make a difference. I think a lot of innovators are like this. People like money, of course, but I think the builders would still build with no competitive protections.

edanm 8y ago
Well, I'd love to live in that society too, but like you say, that's not really indicative. And remember, the question isn't just whether builders like you will build cool things. It's whether builders that build boring but marginally useful products will build them. Lots of people will still build games, but how many will still build web applications for helping perform tax audits for lawyers? Sure biologists would still do interesting work, but how many of them will personally put up the millions of dollars in funding necessary to create drugs that sightly improve some patient outcomes? I'm not saying patents are implemented perfectly right now, or that there aren't better possible alternatives (and I think at least one of my examples is a case where things usually aren't protected by patents). But I think it's wrong to assume that innovation will happen At the same rate if you remove most of the money in it. (and again, just look at the history here - almost all innovation for hundreds of years came from the few really privileged few who could do innovation for fun, afaict)
- civilitty 8y ago
  The same people who are investing in biotech now would be the ones investing in it then. Inventors may do it for fun but capital needs to generate an ROI to justify its existence and in a growth obsessed global economy, scientific and technological progress leading to spending power increases is the only reliable growth mechanism. Massive underinvestmet in long term prospects and over reliance on government granted monopolies is a symptom of our IP system, not an argument for its existence.
  - edanm 8y ago
    I'm... not sure where we disagree? Except for your first and last sentences? I mean, the whole point of granting a monopoly is to give incentives to investors to invest in biotech, so that they can reap the reward of it. You haven't explained why an investor will choose to invest in something at the same level, if they aren't able to get the same money back for it? If a drug company didn't have a monopoly, the generics that drive down the price of the drug would be out the day after the drug, thus ruining most potential profits. Therefore, developing new drugs wouldn't be worth as much money, so less people will invest in it. You seem to completely agree with this point when you write: "Inventors may do it for fun but capital needs to generate an ROI to justify its existence and in a growth obsessed global economy, scientific and technological progress leading to spending power increases is the only reliable growth mechanism." The whole (practical) idea of the capitalistic system in e.g. the US is to align private incentives with public incentives, so if someone develops a worthwhile drug (or e.g. writes a good book), they will be able to receive a reward for it. Just because scientific and tech progress is the only growth mechanism, doesn't give any one specific investor the incentive to invest in it (I forget the technical term for it, it's a kind of commons problem). Again, I'm not sure I understand you, because you seem to be saying something similar, but coming to a completely different conclusion?
    - TACIXAT 8y ago
      Ok, I was writing a reply and I got to talking about how we do not have perfect markets, we do not have infinite suppliers that would drive the profit to zero. That actually got me asking an interesting question, do we have "infinite supply"? Do we have the means to produce medicine for everyone? This might put a finger on a weird feeling I have about the economy right now. We have a trillion dollar company that is producing easily copied electronics (their operating system is harder to replicate), we have very drugs that can be easily ripped off into generics, we have media that commands hundred plus dollar a month subscriptions that can be readily shared online. I guess the feeling that I can finally put to words is that all of this stuff is horribly mispriced. Would there be a single initial investment? No, probably not. There would still be profit opportunity though. Innovation would be spread between more parties. Rather than one company doing huge amounts of R&D it would be many individuals making incremental improvements, to address their own needs or to address profit opportunities. It is the same with software ideas, I could tell you my most brilliant idea (give up my monopoly) but the chances that you would go and implement it are low. Not everyone is going to be producing generics, not everyone can, not everyone wants to. The profit does not go to zero, hopefully it would just go to affordable.
- jasonkostempski 8y ago
  "but how many will still build web applications for helping perform tax audits for lawyers?" Maybe we're better off without that software. Or maybe its useful enough that a group of IRS agents and lawyers would still be willing to pay somebody to build it, even though they don't get new "IP" out of it.
  - edanm 8y ago
    But then we might be ruling out a whole host of products, because of the incentive problems. No one person has the incentive to fund the entire development of the software, since it's prohibitively expensive. But if offered at a much lower charge, they would use it. I mean, would you fund the development of MacOS / Windows by yourself, just so you can use it? (Keep in mind that person #2 can then free-ride on your funding and buy it practically at cost, since why not?). Or let's take the argument to books. I assume most people wouldn't fund someone's salary for a year to write a book. But I really enjoy the end result of the fact that someone can write a book, then spread their costs on thousands of people. (I'm not too worried about the JK Rowling's of the world, btw, I'm worried about a mid-level author, not someone who is rich in our world, someone who manages to make a decent living off of a back-catalogue of dozens of stories and books. They're the ones who are usually the most hurt). You can of course extend this argument to things that cost a lot more to produce - movies, music, etc. Many things we value would not have been produced, simply because of lack of incentives (or lack of time while these people do some other job to earn money). You can certainly think of alternative methods of funding these things, but they have their own problem. E.g. something like Patreon, which in some ways is a homage to how things were funded before modern capitalism - a rich patron would fund specific artists to produce great works. And that's great! I love Patreon, and support numerous very deserving creators on there. But this has problems too - for one, some things are too expensive to do this way (e.g. most movies). For another, patronage gives a huge preference to things people know will work (how many people will fund drug-research to the tune of billions, with a small chance of success?). And patronage gives a preference to things people knowingly prefer - and again, we miss out on the mid-level artists of today scraping by, who can't get a large enough following, but still get some fans (and who potentially turn out to later be considered geniuses). I'm not saying IP is perfect, and I certainly don't agree with all the things done for it (like the numerous extensions to IP which might not make sense). And our current system has issues too! We "missed" artists like Van Gogh, after all. I'm just saying that taking an un-nuanced view at this and concluding "IP is terrible, let's just get rid of it" is, in my mind, incredibly wrongheaded, at least if you believe that it won't significantly change the amount of stuff produced for the worse. You might have reasons to prefer that anyway, I suppose, but let's first understand the actual effects of throwing out IP law.
- icebraining 8y ago
  how many will still build web applications for helping perform tax audits for lawyers? Enough. During my professional life, the software companies I worked for built business software like that, and we licensed it under A/LGPL. Much of it actually published online for everyone to use. Instead of relying from rents based on IP, we simply got paid ahead of time to build new applications, or change existing ones. Lawyers would simply do the same if they need that software, either individually or as a group. Crowdfunding works too (even for B2B software!).

edanm 8y ago

Well, I'd love to live in that society too, but like you say, that's not really indicative. And remember, the question isn't just whether builders like you will build cool things. It's whether builders that build boring but marginally useful products will build them. Lots of people will still build games, but how many will still build web applications for helping perform tax audits for lawyers? Sure biologists would still do interesting work, but how many of them will personally put up the millions of dollars in funding necessary to create drugs that sightly improve some patient outcomes? I'm not saying patents are implemented perfectly right now, or that there aren't better possible alternatives (and I think at least one of my examples is a case where things usually aren't protected by patents). But I think it's wrong to assume that innovation will happen At the same rate if you remove most of the money in it. (and again, just look at the history here - almost all innovation for hundreds of years came from the few really privileged few who could do innovation for fun, afaict)

civilitty 8y ago
The same people who are investing in biotech now would be the ones investing in it then. Inventors may do it for fun but capital needs to generate an ROI to justify its existence and in a growth obsessed global economy, scientific and technological progress leading to spending power increases is the only reliable growth mechanism. Massive underinvestmet in long term prospects and over reliance on government granted monopolies is a symptom of our IP system, not an argument for its existence.
- edanm 8y ago
  I'm... not sure where we disagree? Except for your first and last sentences? I mean, the whole point of granting a monopoly is to give incentives to investors to invest in biotech, so that they can reap the reward of it. You haven't explained why an investor will choose to invest in something at the same level, if they aren't able to get the same money back for it? If a drug company didn't have a monopoly, the generics that drive down the price of the drug would be out the day after the drug, thus ruining most potential profits. Therefore, developing new drugs wouldn't be worth as much money, so less people will invest in it. You seem to completely agree with this point when you write: "Inventors may do it for fun but capital needs to generate an ROI to justify its existence and in a growth obsessed global economy, scientific and technological progress leading to spending power increases is the only reliable growth mechanism." The whole (practical) idea of the capitalistic system in e.g. the US is to align private incentives with public incentives, so if someone develops a worthwhile drug (or e.g. writes a good book), they will be able to receive a reward for it. Just because scientific and tech progress is the only growth mechanism, doesn't give any one specific investor the incentive to invest in it (I forget the technical term for it, it's a kind of commons problem). Again, I'm not sure I understand you, because you seem to be saying something similar, but coming to a completely different conclusion?
  - TACIXAT 8y ago
    Ok, I was writing a reply and I got to talking about how we do not have perfect markets, we do not have infinite suppliers that would drive the profit to zero. That actually got me asking an interesting question, do we have "infinite supply"? Do we have the means to produce medicine for everyone? This might put a finger on a weird feeling I have about the economy right now. We have a trillion dollar company that is producing easily copied electronics (their operating system is harder to replicate), we have very drugs that can be easily ripped off into generics, we have media that commands hundred plus dollar a month subscriptions that can be readily shared online. I guess the feeling that I can finally put to words is that all of this stuff is horribly mispriced. Would there be a single initial investment? No, probably not. There would still be profit opportunity though. Innovation would be spread between more parties. Rather than one company doing huge amounts of R&D it would be many individuals making incremental improvements, to address their own needs or to address profit opportunities. It is the same with software ideas, I could tell you my most brilliant idea (give up my monopoly) but the chances that you would go and implement it are low. Not everyone is going to be producing generics, not everyone can, not everyone wants to. The profit does not go to zero, hopefully it would just go to affordable.
jasonkostempski 8y ago
"but how many will still build web applications for helping perform tax audits for lawyers?" Maybe we're better off without that software. Or maybe its useful enough that a group of IRS agents and lawyers would still be willing to pay somebody to build it, even though they don't get new "IP" out of it.
- edanm 8y ago
  But then we might be ruling out a whole host of products, because of the incentive problems. No one person has the incentive to fund the entire development of the software, since it's prohibitively expensive. But if offered at a much lower charge, they would use it. I mean, would you fund the development of MacOS / Windows by yourself, just so you can use it? (Keep in mind that person #2 can then free-ride on your funding and buy it practically at cost, since why not?). Or let's take the argument to books. I assume most people wouldn't fund someone's salary for a year to write a book. But I really enjoy the end result of the fact that someone can write a book, then spread their costs on thousands of people. (I'm not too worried about the JK Rowling's of the world, btw, I'm worried about a mid-level author, not someone who is rich in our world, someone who manages to make a decent living off of a back-catalogue of dozens of stories and books. They're the ones who are usually the most hurt). You can of course extend this argument to things that cost a lot more to produce - movies, music, etc. Many things we value would not have been produced, simply because of lack of incentives (or lack of time while these people do some other job to earn money). You can certainly think of alternative methods of funding these things, but they have their own problem. E.g. something like Patreon, which in some ways is a homage to how things were funded before modern capitalism - a rich patron would fund specific artists to produce great works. And that's great! I love Patreon, and support numerous very deserving creators on there. But this has problems too - for one, some things are too expensive to do this way (e.g. most movies). For another, patronage gives a huge preference to things people know will work (how many people will fund drug-research to the tune of billions, with a small chance of success?). And patronage gives a preference to things people knowingly prefer - and again, we miss out on the mid-level artists of today scraping by, who can't get a large enough following, but still get some fans (and who potentially turn out to later be considered geniuses). I'm not saying IP is perfect, and I certainly don't agree with all the things done for it (like the numerous extensions to IP which might not make sense). And our current system has issues too! We "missed" artists like Van Gogh, after all. I'm just saying that taking an un-nuanced view at this and concluding "IP is terrible, let's just get rid of it" is, in my mind, incredibly wrongheaded, at least if you believe that it won't significantly change the amount of stuff produced for the worse. You might have reasons to prefer that anyway, I suppose, but let's first understand the actual effects of throwing out IP law.
icebraining 8y ago
how many will still build web applications for helping perform tax audits for lawyers? Enough. During my professional life, the software companies I worked for built business software like that, and we licensed it under A/LGPL. Much of it actually published online for everyone to use. Instead of relying from rents based on IP, we simply got paid ahead of time to build new applications, or change existing ones. Lawyers would simply do the same if they need that software, either individually or as a group. Crowdfunding works too (even for B2B software!).