> But it's rivalrous in a distinctive way--it's a function of contemporaneous and evolving limitations of the existing state of technology and usage patterns.

> But it's rivalrous in a distinctive way--it's a function of contemporaneous and evolving limitations of the existing state of technology and usage patterns. > Whether a new radio system "interferes" with existing ones is entirely dependent on the equipment involved. With this definition then there is no other type of rivalry. This is true for any resource with tragedy of the commons, where an externality is encountered. This goes for land, agriculture, pollution, oil, etc. The limit here is always the efficient production from some resource using technology. This is part of the ceteris paribus of rivalry. For what you're discussing, for non-interfering waves with the same spectrum, you would need a QAM or some other modulation scheme, with more granular phase detection, which requires exponential more energy, thus capital, per degree resolution of phase detection at the same distance. Thus, the rivalry always exists because enterprises prefer the method leading to the cheapest production with the same product. > maybe we should be promoting technological development by letting people freely interfere, which can be done by imposing no rules whatever, not even a property regime. Absent power limits, that's pretty much what we do with WiFi. As I'll continue discussing in your other comment this is exactly what Coase advocated for. > establishing a private property regime is still rather interventionist It is in the sense you're discussing with the FCC but not in the Coase's sense where private property is in the strict abstract sense by enforcement of contracts between consenting individuals. Coase's point is that it shouldn't be specially regulated differently than the enforcement of any other private contract. Unless for specific cases which can only be known through experience