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Open source hardware is also really good at allowing whoever can produce something cheapest to capture all the profits. Unless the designers are careful about

Open source hardware is also really good at allowing whoever can produce something cheapest to capture all the profits. Unless the designers are careful about controlling the results of their labor they won't be the ones "thriving", or even benefiting. It only works in certain niches where the technical aspects of production or market naturally exclude most other manufacturers. Or what about designers who don't necessarily want to be in production just to make money? Ask someone who has spent years and thousands of dollars developing something only to have a copy shop in Asia start selling their widget for half the cost a month after the design files get posted if they think that's a sustainable business model.

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
I guess I am asking a systems question. I am asking if it is worth researching what a more open or fully open economy would do for the overall rate of innovation. If we found that it was better to be more open, we could find a way to slowly transition to a more open economy. After transition, you would know someone else may duplicate your work, and you would invest appropriately. You might invest less but you would also benefit more directly from everyone else's investment, so it is non obvious if you would be better or worse off. "Open source hardware is also really good at allowing whoever can produce something cheapest to capture all the profits." Please name specific companies to back up this claim. Open hardware companies that succeed despite clones are Arduino, Prusa Research, Sparkfun, Adafruit... Certainly the rules would be different in an open economy, and so we would have to transition with care. But I think there is a chance that an open economy would have a higher rate of overall innovation. If that were true, the implications for humanity would be staggering. We can duplicate information for free, and so we can duplicate some forms of value for free. But I have never seen an economic theory that leverages this obvious feature of computerized information to produce more value.

TaylorAlexander 6y ago

I guess I am asking a systems question. I am asking if it is worth researching what a more open or fully open economy would do for the overall rate of innovation. If we found that it was better to be more open, we could find a way to slowly transition to a more open economy. After transition, you would know someone else may duplicate your work, and you would invest appropriately. You might invest less but you would also benefit more directly from everyone else's investment, so it is non obvious if you would be better or worse off. "Open source hardware is also really good at allowing whoever can produce something cheapest to capture all the profits." Please name specific companies to back up this claim. Open hardware companies that succeed despite clones are Arduino, Prusa Research, Sparkfun, Adafruit... Certainly the rules would be different in an open economy, and so we would have to transition with care. But I think there is a chance that an open economy would have a higher rate of overall innovation. If that were true, the implications for humanity would be staggering. We can duplicate information for free, and so we can duplicate some forms of value for free. But I have never seen an economic theory that leverages this obvious feature of computerized information to produce more value.