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There is a finite number of things to do which create value and which humans are willing to pay for Ridiculous. This reminds me of the story of the patent com
by ScottBurson 14y ago
There is a finite number of things to do which create value and which humans are willing to pay for
Ridiculous.
This reminds me of the story of the patent commissioner in the late 1800s who suggested closing the patent office because everything had already been invented that could be.
We are on the cusp of an explosion in new ways for people to create value. I don't understand how someone who has been around HN as long as you have can't see that. Look at YC -- both the endless variety of startups it's funding, and the business itself, which was extremely creative in its inception. And that's just one nexus of activity; there are many.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- malandrew 14y agoI almost completely agree with this. I think yummyfajitas' key point rests on the "willing to pay for" part. The number of things that others do that I am willing to pay for drops as more and more "stuff" become abundant. I generally accept that wants are unlimited but attention is not and free stuff increasingly taxes attention to the point that working to earn additional money to buy more stuff has an attention-denominated opportunity cost. Good enough is the enemy of better. What happens when people don't feel that the things people are doing to create value are no longer considered valuable to motivate people to keep people from generating that value for monetary reasons? At a macroeconomic scale, either some other extrinsic motivators must appear or we need to be intrinsically motivated in creating ever more value.