4 ms·

Fair points, but a quicker to market half assed product also means it'll likely be cheaper and more widely available which translates to more product iteration

Fair points, but a quicker to market half assed product also means it'll likely be cheaper and more widely available which translates to more product iteration cycles because more data, more users, more tests and more competition.

notacoward 8y ago
> a quicker to market half assed product That's not the alternative at all. If companies have insufficient incentive to do certain kinds of R&D, they just won't do it. Entire categories of products wouldn't exist. Do you think any part of the computer you typed that on would be as nice - or exist at all - if the people who invented better screens and batteries and storage media hadn't expected to gain first/most from the basic physics and chemistry and process engineering involved? No, there would have been zero product iteration cycles without the basic innovations on which those depend.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  Incentives can take many forms. You could have prizes, funded e.g. by governments, consumer organizations, charities and the like, for opening up the sort of research that is often "protected" by trade secrets. Open source software has worked very well for a number of corporations, bringing all sorts of benefits in marketing, recruiting, cost-sharing etc. There's no reason why the same couldn't apply to many formerly "secret" techniques.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    Open source is great. I'm a maintainer for a pretty large open-source project, so I'm clearly not opposed to the idea, but it not a solution for something like basic electrical engineering or materials science research. Prizes just don't seem to work that well either. As you say, incentives take many forms. Every form that they take adds to the amount of R&D that gets done, and "we're gonna make a ton of money off this" is responsible for the largest single slice of that pie. When you take away protection for inventors, you practically guarantee that the fruits of their labor will go to the people who already own the big production lines and supply chains. That's a really terrible way to run an innovation economy.
- deevolution 8y ago
  All I'm saying is if a company DOESNT have the balls to open source / share their knowledge and trade secrets then they probably arent all that great to begin with - they're probably scared shitless about losing their first mover advantage and probably also incompetent in maintaining their lead.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    Why shouldn't they enjoy a first mover advantage, if they invested their money in doing the research to create an entire market? That's how capitalism and free markets are supposed to work: those who take the risk get to reap the rewards. Not some big company that waits to see whether the startup's idea pans out, then jumps in with a hundred engineers and millions of dollars and a huge marketing/sales apparatus to take over the market. It's easy to say "share everything" when you've never created anything others would value. Even though I'm way over on the left side of the spectrum myself, I reject that moocher ethos.

notacoward 8y ago

> a quicker to market half assed product That's not the alternative at all. If companies have insufficient incentive to do certain kinds of R&D, they just won't do it. Entire categories of products wouldn't exist. Do you think any part of the computer you typed that on would be as nice - or exist at all - if the people who invented better screens and batteries and storage media hadn't expected to gain first/most from the basic physics and chemistry and process engineering involved? No, there would have been zero product iteration cycles without the basic innovations on which those depend.

zozbot123 8y ago
Incentives can take many forms. You could have prizes, funded e.g. by governments, consumer organizations, charities and the like, for opening up the sort of research that is often "protected" by trade secrets. Open source software has worked very well for a number of corporations, bringing all sorts of benefits in marketing, recruiting, cost-sharing etc. There's no reason why the same couldn't apply to many formerly "secret" techniques.
- notacoward 8y ago
  Open source is great. I'm a maintainer for a pretty large open-source project, so I'm clearly not opposed to the idea, but it not a solution for something like basic electrical engineering or materials science research. Prizes just don't seem to work that well either. As you say, incentives take many forms. Every form that they take adds to the amount of R&D that gets done, and "we're gonna make a ton of money off this" is responsible for the largest single slice of that pie. When you take away protection for inventors, you practically guarantee that the fruits of their labor will go to the people who already own the big production lines and supply chains. That's a really terrible way to run an innovation economy.
deevolution 8y ago
All I'm saying is if a company DOESNT have the balls to open source / share their knowledge and trade secrets then they probably arent all that great to begin with - they're probably scared shitless about losing their first mover advantage and probably also incompetent in maintaining their lead.
- notacoward 8y ago
  Why shouldn't they enjoy a first mover advantage, if they invested their money in doing the research to create an entire market? That's how capitalism and free markets are supposed to work: those who take the risk get to reap the rewards. Not some big company that waits to see whether the startup's idea pans out, then jumps in with a hundred engineers and millions of dollars and a huge marketing/sales apparatus to take over the market. It's easy to say "share everything" when you've never created anything others would value. Even though I'm way over on the left side of the spectrum myself, I reject that moocher ethos.