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Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. A lot of "software innovation" is not about building better software, but building sof

Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. A lot of "software innovation" is not about building better software, but building software you can charge for, which means "walled gardens", patents, DRM, license servers, anti-tampering mechanisms, and the like. In essence all content (music, movies, software, books, etc) follows the same pattern. Note that profit-driven entities can give away software, but only if it supports another artificially scarce good. Google rents space on its search tool, as Facebook rents space on its social media tool. Ad space is scarce, and made more valuable the more Google and Facebook give away (which is proportional to the attention they capture). But devs generally don't like artificial scarcity, so the platforms need a path in for them. I think Apple demonstrates this most clearly: the iPad and iPhone are software consumption devices, but the Mac is also a software creation device, and therefore is generally more open, free, and changeable.

vanderZwan 6y ago
> Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. A lot of "software innovation" is not about building better software, but building software you can charge for, which means "walled gardens", patents, DRM, license servers, anti-tampering mechanisms, and the like. In essence all content (music, movies, software, books, etc) follows the same pattern. You remind me of Cory Doctorow's "The Coming War on General Computation" keynote, which interestingly didn't notice that streaming and similar cloud-based services would become the DRM of the last decade. Or, as it turns out, the rising appeal of non-general purpose devices that are more efficient. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg [1] https://joshuawise.com/28c3-transcript https://joshuawise.com/28c3-transcript
hypertele-Xii 6y ago
Linux is software, Linux is economically worth a lot, Linux isn't artificially scarce.
- IQunder130 6y ago
  Control of where Linux development is going is indeed economically worth a lot. Copies of the Linux kernel are near enough to worthless for the distinction not to matter.
dsr_ 6y ago
"Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce" This is wrong, and every open-source project including OpenBSD and Linux, emacs and vim is counter-evidence. "A lot of "software innovation" is not about building better software, but building software you can charge for" -- this is correct.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  Economically worthless is a very bad phrasing, but the concept is very real (economists go with non-excludable, but that has an underwhelming impact on laypeople), software authors have a really hard time capturing the value they create.
  - javajosh 6y ago
    I've always thought of it as the turn-style in front of the theme-park. Without that turn-style, the theme-part is economically worthless no matter how good it is.
    - marcosdumay 6y ago
      Yes, that's the idea, but keep in mind that "economically worthless" has a literal meaning that is almost opposite of what you are trying to say.
      - dsr_ 6y ago
        And not only that... but a theme park without an entry fee is still a money-maker via snacks, drinks, souvenir cups, and extra-cost rides and line-skipping. In much the same way that a company can produce an open-source product and charge for support, feature development, consulting, data feeds and sometimes SAAS operation.
      - javajosh 6y ago
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. Worthless to whom? Maybe for corporations who want to make billions by exploiting a legal monopoly. For the rest of humanity, abundant software is extremely valuable.
silasdavis 6y ago
I don't think scarcity in ad space is particular artifical. Attention is a limited resource.
swiley 6y ago
>Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. If that were the case no software would be written except by hobbyists as a kind of joke. Software provides value other than being scarce and it's really the maintenance of the software that people are wanting (those paying attention at least) not the software itself.

vanderZwan 6y ago

> Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. A lot of "software innovation" is not about building better software, but building software you can charge for, which means "walled gardens", patents, DRM, license servers, anti-tampering mechanisms, and the like. In essence all content (music, movies, software, books, etc) follows the same pattern. You remind me of Cory Doctorow's "The Coming War on General Computation" keynote, which interestingly didn't notice that streaming and similar cloud-based services would become the DRM of the last decade. Or, as it turns out, the rising appeal of non-general purpose devices that are more efficient. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg [1] https://joshuawise.com/28c3-transcript https://joshuawise.com/28c3-transcript

hypertele-Xii 6y ago

Linux is software, Linux is economically worth a lot, Linux isn't artificially scarce.

IQunder130 6y ago
Control of where Linux development is going is indeed economically worth a lot. Copies of the Linux kernel are near enough to worthless for the distinction not to matter.

dsr_ 6y ago

"Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce" This is wrong, and every open-source project including OpenBSD and Linux, emacs and vim is counter-evidence. "A lot of "software innovation" is not about building better software, but building software you can charge for" -- this is correct.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marcosdumay 6y ago
Economically worthless is a very bad phrasing, but the concept is very real (economists go with non-excludable, but that has an underwhelming impact on laypeople), software authors have a really hard time capturing the value they create.
- javajosh 6y ago
  I've always thought of it as the turn-style in front of the theme-park. Without that turn-style, the theme-part is economically worthless no matter how good it is.
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    Yes, that's the idea, but keep in mind that "economically worthless" has a literal meaning that is almost opposite of what you are trying to say.
    - dsr_ 6y ago
      And not only that... but a theme park without an entry fee is still a money-maker via snacks, drinks, souvenir cups, and extra-cost rides and line-skipping. In much the same way that a company can produce an open-source product and charge for support, feature development, consulting, data feeds and sometimes SAAS operation.
    - javajosh 6y ago

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. Worthless to whom? Maybe for corporations who want to make billions by exploiting a legal monopoly. For the rest of humanity, abundant software is extremely valuable.

silasdavis 6y ago

I don't think scarcity in ad space is particular artifical. Attention is a limited resource.

swiley 6y ago

>Software is economically worthless without making it artificially scarce. If that were the case no software would be written except by hobbyists as a kind of joke. Software provides value other than being scarce and it's really the maintenance of the software that people are wanting (those paying attention at least) not the software itself.