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"How would a market for ideas work, in any case? How could you prevent someone from listening to a bunch of ideas and just walking away with the ones they like?
by MobileDigit 19y ago
"How would a market for ideas work, in any case? How could you prevent someone from listening to a bunch of ideas and just walking away with the ones they like?"
-- your blog post
Secrecy and contracts?
- davidw 19y agoWhich makes the transaction costs higher than the idea is probably worth. Execution is very important, and in an ideas market, there would probably also be a lot of crappy ones. So, you have to sign a bunch of NDA like contracts, risk being sued if you ever develop anything like the things you may have seen, and probably also have to wade through a lot of junk. While it might be sort of doable, it's probably not worth it until we have a magic pill that lets you forget the last 5 minutes of your life completely and totally.
- MobileDigit 19y ago"Which makes the transaction costs higher than the idea is probably worth." These costs could surely be lowered if there was demand for ideas in the first place. I think this is more evidence that ideas by themselves are generally worthless.
- davidw 19y agoIt's evidence that the value of ideas, on aggregate, is low (which makes sense), but doesn't point to a value of 0, just lower than the transaction costs inherent in the attempt to create a market for a more or less non excludable good. Markets do best when there is sufficient information, and so a market based around secrecy and potential lawsuits isn't going to be a very good one. Look at software patents, for instance... it's not a very nice or healthy market.
- juwo 19y agosee http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=24338 http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=24338
- juwo 19y agodo a google search on "patent trolls"
- MobileDigit 19y agoI don't think patents are legitimate.
- MobileDigit 19y agoPlease tell me why you think they are if you disagree.