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> Today we produce 1,000,000x more videos/memes/gifs/conten Truth is nobody knows how to value those things in terms of money, to be honest I'm not even sure t

> Today we produce 1,000,000x more videos/memes/gifs/conten Truth is nobody knows how to value those things in terms of money, to be honest I'm not even sure they can be valued the same way as we used to value physical things that got built during a physical production process. I've seen this problem partially addressed by slightly leftish-leaning economists such as Mariana Mazzucato in "The Value of Everything" [1] and I'm sure there may be others like her, but afaik mainstream economics is still ignoring the issue, I think mainstream economists don't even acknowledge this as being an issue. [1] https://marianamazzucato.com/books/the-value-of-everything https://marianamazzucato.com/books/the-value-of-everything

lordnacho 5y ago
I read her book, it's quite good and makes good points. I studied economics and her points make sense. There truly is a big value hole, intellectually. Our current default is actually not a theory of value at all, it's a hand waive that allows us to not get stuck in a deep conversation about what is worthwhile. Of course the problem is that any theory of value like the labor theory has massive holes as well. That's why the current subjective value theory is not really a theory: it's not wrong, it's a placeholder.
ItsMonkk 5y ago
Thanks for the link. I've been building a hobby looking into this space. Personally I think we can use Vickrey Auctions for this problem. Vickrey Auctions are able to give not only price discovery, but also value discovery. Everything digital has infinite supplies, that we artificially constrain so as to pump prices. If instead of using price discovery, we use value discovery, the price can stay at 0, so long as a certain (limited) amount of people are faced with a choice that would have them go without. So for example perhaps we sample 50,000 people and say 75% of people keep access, say when they vote. If you bid in the top 75%, you keep access for the period, and you pay the value that the bottom person that kept access bid. That money is then not used to pay for the IP, some other tax will fund the IP or Open Source Software or Meme, that 25% will then go to all the voters for providing their values. So the average bidder will pay nothing, the below average bidder will lose something they value low, but gain, and the highest bidders will fund that. We then take some other collection and sample another 50,000 people, until we find out the value of all of these digital items to people. If you do the subsidization process correctly, I think the idea of IP owners holding their supply back would go away, as releasing it to all would always provide more value than holding it back. I think at the very least this would be an obvious answer to Open Source Software, and this would easily fund things like Linux and Firefox. I think this would stretch further to research, and colleges would now be funded through this mechanism, and the professors who currently waste enormous amounts of time doing grant writing would be able to be productive. Thus the whole issue of journals goes away. Even things like ads, people would bid on their service less because of them, so there would be no fundamental reason to include them as it would reduce the subsidy.
Nasrudith 5y ago
There is a reason they are ignoring it. Their notions of value aren't workable or coherent. If I manufacture a gun and it is used by a rancher it reduces predator-on-livestock losses. If I manufacture it and an eventual buyer uses it in a school shooting it causes large losses. There is this weirdly persistent leftist idea of demanding absolute precognition with values for things which are determined in the future and utterly irrelevant and unknown. If I buy coffee beans from locals of Cape Horn growers for my use at the local prices I am helping by supporting local farmers. If I roast them and sell them overseas for 100x the cost I am somehow harming them now. The Marxist derived notions of value and exploitation are downright certifiably insane.
- pishpash 5y ago
  You aren't harming them but you should share some of that 100x? Of course the market would take care of that by transmission of information through a horde of you buying for the 100x gain. Eventually they'd share in that. So you see, the concept isn't wrong, just that there is already a mechanism for it.

lordnacho 5y ago

I read her book, it's quite good and makes good points. I studied economics and her points make sense. There truly is a big value hole, intellectually. Our current default is actually not a theory of value at all, it's a hand waive that allows us to not get stuck in a deep conversation about what is worthwhile. Of course the problem is that any theory of value like the labor theory has massive holes as well. That's why the current subjective value theory is not really a theory: it's not wrong, it's a placeholder.

ItsMonkk 5y ago

Thanks for the link. I've been building a hobby looking into this space. Personally I think we can use Vickrey Auctions for this problem. Vickrey Auctions are able to give not only price discovery, but also value discovery. Everything digital has infinite supplies, that we artificially constrain so as to pump prices. If instead of using price discovery, we use value discovery, the price can stay at 0, so long as a certain (limited) amount of people are faced with a choice that would have them go without. So for example perhaps we sample 50,000 people and say 75% of people keep access, say when they vote. If you bid in the top 75%, you keep access for the period, and you pay the value that the bottom person that kept access bid. That money is then not used to pay for the IP, some other tax will fund the IP or Open Source Software or Meme, that 25% will then go to all the voters for providing their values. So the average bidder will pay nothing, the below average bidder will lose something they value low, but gain, and the highest bidders will fund that. We then take some other collection and sample another 50,000 people, until we find out the value of all of these digital items to people. If you do the subsidization process correctly, I think the idea of IP owners holding their supply back would go away, as releasing it to all would always provide more value than holding it back. I think at the very least this would be an obvious answer to Open Source Software, and this would easily fund things like Linux and Firefox. I think this would stretch further to research, and colleges would now be funded through this mechanism, and the professors who currently waste enormous amounts of time doing grant writing would be able to be productive. Thus the whole issue of journals goes away. Even things like ads, people would bid on their service less because of them, so there would be no fundamental reason to include them as it would reduce the subsidy.

Nasrudith 5y ago

There is a reason they are ignoring it. Their notions of value aren't workable or coherent. If I manufacture a gun and it is used by a rancher it reduces predator-on-livestock losses. If I manufacture it and an eventual buyer uses it in a school shooting it causes large losses. There is this weirdly persistent leftist idea of demanding absolute precognition with values for things which are determined in the future and utterly irrelevant and unknown. If I buy coffee beans from locals of Cape Horn growers for my use at the local prices I am helping by supporting local farmers. If I roast them and sell them overseas for 100x the cost I am somehow harming them now. The Marxist derived notions of value and exploitation are downright certifiably insane.

pishpash 5y ago
You aren't harming them but you should share some of that 100x? Of course the market would take care of that by transmission of information through a horde of you buying for the 100x gain. Eventually they'd share in that. So you see, the concept isn't wrong, just that there is already a mechanism for it.