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* the hamgurger wont be free tomorrow, it will be mouldy tomorrow and you'll be more hungry. The price for that particular hamburger will be $0 once it's mould

by dstein 16y ago

* the hamgurger wont be free tomorrow, it will be mouldy tomorrow and you'll be more hungry. The price for that particular hamburger will be $0 once it's mouldy. It only reaches $0 when nobody will pay anything for it so it never actually reaches $0. Now imagine McDonald's developed technology that could produce a million hamburgers per second really cheaply. I imagine the price of hamburgers would become practically $0. This is essentially what's happening to most aspects of our technology, information, and digital goods. * The film may be free but it will be "old", and the app may have a free clone but people (businesses) still pay for old proprietary software now instead of free clones. It's not that it instantly drops to $0. It's deflation, the price decays over time. The longer a film is easily available on the internet, or the longer a "good-enough" free app is out the more the price of the film and app fall. The pace of this deflation is increasing as technology makes it easier and cheaper to produce and distribute digital goods.

tel 16y ago
I disagree on structure. This is a everything-argument. For instance, should there be an epic war and a return to levels of knowledge and technology to pre-Industrial Revolution levels, all of your arguments still hold. So what explains the trend that things are getting cheaper? I think it's because people learn more quickly the value of something. I can sell an ignorant person a moldy hamburger if I'm cruel. They may not know, or may be so hungry they'll take the short term reward without being aware of the long term damage. Today, I can hardly make a movie without having every intending consumer become painfully aware of every alternative. It's that value is suddenly more transient. I think it's because the speed of information causes the time constants on those transients to shrink drastically.

by dstein 16y ago

tel 16y ago

I disagree on structure. This is a everything-argument. For instance, should there be an epic war and a return to levels of knowledge and technology to pre-Industrial Revolution levels, all of your arguments still hold. So what explains the trend that things are getting cheaper? I think it's because people learn more quickly the value of something. I can sell an ignorant person a moldy hamburger if I'm cruel. They may not know, or may be so hungry they'll take the short term reward without being aware of the long term damage. Today, I can hardly make a movie without having every intending consumer become painfully aware of every alternative. It's that value is suddenly more transient. I think it's because the speed of information causes the time constants on those transients to shrink drastically.