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They won't show up directly but they should (hopefully) be observable via secondary effects. Linux itself doesn't have price but employees using Linux have sala

They won't show up directly but they should (hopefully) be observable via secondary effects. Linux itself doesn't have price but employees using Linux have salaries, Redhat support has a price. SaaS providers do this for countless open source projects. Linux and free software are also used for thousands of small commercial websites and projects that show up. If everyone had to use Windows Server and SQL Server for their .NET wordpress-style site there would be fewer sites and fewer businesses. Educational YouTube channels should lead to more educated and therefore more productive people. It could be argued that for better or worse the higher-ed and post-high school systems (degrees, credentials, etc.) have been very slow or even opposed at allowing this extra learning/knowledge to improve career/productivity outlooks. e.g. Youtube is free but text books have increased X% in price so the net effect is diminished. Learning is easier and cheaper than ever before but most colleges are not using the more efficient learning systems (online classes, MOACs(?)). The cost of college has increased so much that college itself has decreased in productivity, etc. Also a lot of the time spent on these free/non-profit projects are not counted as labor hours so if anything they should have zero or positive effect on the measured amount of productivity. (Personally I think HN is responsible. /jk)

jollybean 5y ago
The 'secondary effects' are bigger houses than ever, more toys than ever, more entertainment than ever, safer, more fuel efficient cars, more vacation (it's not much in the US though), more vacation travel etc.. "Educational YouTube channels should lead to more educated and therefore more productive people." Possibly, but also less demand for a big source of labour productivity, which is education. And of course there is home life: if a Mother (or Father) stays home to mind the kids, all of the effort they do doesn't count towards labour input, GDP etc. but if they were paying someone for it, it would.

jollybean 5y ago

The 'secondary effects' are bigger houses than ever, more toys than ever, more entertainment than ever, safer, more fuel efficient cars, more vacation (it's not much in the US though), more vacation travel etc.. "Educational YouTube channels should lead to more educated and therefore more productive people." Possibly, but also less demand for a big source of labour productivity, which is education. And of course there is home life: if a Mother (or Father) stays home to mind the kids, all of the effort they do doesn't count towards labour input, GDP etc. but if they were paying someone for it, it would.