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Economic competition implies massive waste of effort. Not sharing work and ideas is one of them; others include the psychological/sociological effects of compe

by nfoz 12y ago

Economic competition implies massive waste of effort. Not sharing work and ideas is one of them; others include the psychological/sociological effects of competition and pressure, and also all the resources poured into advertising (which itself does not particularly give us better products/services). This isn't unique to Google Maps; the same goes for competing pharmaceutical companies, educational institutions, and everything else. Imagine if they were all cooperating rather than competing. However there are also some benefits to competition. Notably, the impetus to take risks of private capital in order to build new things / try new ventures. Also, the presence of choice in the market (in this case, you can choose which maps you consider more reliable). I'd love to see more exploration into economic systems involving cooperation and choice, instead of competition. Can we have independent organizations motivated to produce different-but-similar goods, while simultaneously sharing their efforts?

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
I'm not sure competition is always the best model. For certain things it works well, but for things like maps, I think everyone loses out if mapping data is locked in different commercial vendor silos rather than combined into a non-profit, shared single source.
- mamurphy 12y ago
  Can you give examples of things that wouldn't, theoretically, be better if "combined into a non-profit, shared single source?" The whole problem is the incentive to innovate diminishes greatly for non-profit, single sources for most products. Thus, we have capitalism and "different commercial vendor silos" for most things, including maps.
  - ska 12y ago
    I think you are oversimplifying. After all, the map data isn't really the product here. But you are right the tricky thing would be to maintain an incentive structure. Waving hands wildly: imagine a mapping database that was owned by the government, free to use for non-profit uses, and licenseable by corporate entities. Here's the twist though, the license fees are proportional to the government doing a certain amount of upkeep/improvement on the database, and you are free to provide the same work block instead of a fee. That way, if you can do it cheaper, it will save you money up front and if your competitor can't do that, it's a competitive advantage. I haven't thought about this model carefully just pointing out it isn't necessarily as black and white as you suggest...
  - ris 12y ago
    Walk out onto the street and a huge number of things you see will be public, because people have decided that's the best way to do things. Roads, police, emergency services, a lot of infrastructure... It's easy to forget what an enabler this is what with all the noise businesses make about themselves.
  - dalke 12y ago
    It's hard to imagine shared single source competitive sports teams which are more engaging than having multiple teams with (nearly) independent player pools. It does happen at schools, say, where the players for each team in P.E. class are picked at random, but fans get engaged with the team identity and the individual players, and team abilities depend in part on long-term shared practice. It's hard to believe that the space programs of the 1960s would have been better had the Soviet and U.S. programs joined forces for a single space program; also, obviously neither space program was based on the direct market forces of capitalism. The military is also not run under a capitalistic basis, and the concept of "single source" for a NATO or UN force is meaningless. It's even a stretch to say that a combined US Army/Navy/Marine operation is a "single source" given the inter-service rivalries. I'm not convinced that a single world government with its own military would be better.

by nfoz 12y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

I'm not sure competition is always the best model. For certain things it works well, but for things like maps, I think everyone loses out if mapping data is locked in different commercial vendor silos rather than combined into a non-profit, shared single source.

mamurphy 12y ago
Can you give examples of things that wouldn't, theoretically, be better if "combined into a non-profit, shared single source?" The whole problem is the incentive to innovate diminishes greatly for non-profit, single sources for most products. Thus, we have capitalism and "different commercial vendor silos" for most things, including maps.
- ska 12y ago
  I think you are oversimplifying. After all, the map data isn't really the product here. But you are right the tricky thing would be to maintain an incentive structure. Waving hands wildly: imagine a mapping database that was owned by the government, free to use for non-profit uses, and licenseable by corporate entities. Here's the twist though, the license fees are proportional to the government doing a certain amount of upkeep/improvement on the database, and you are free to provide the same work block instead of a fee. That way, if you can do it cheaper, it will save you money up front and if your competitor can't do that, it's a competitive advantage. I haven't thought about this model carefully just pointing out it isn't necessarily as black and white as you suggest...
- ris 12y ago
  Walk out onto the street and a huge number of things you see will be public, because people have decided that's the best way to do things. Roads, police, emergency services, a lot of infrastructure... It's easy to forget what an enabler this is what with all the noise businesses make about themselves.
- dalke 12y ago
  It's hard to imagine shared single source competitive sports teams which are more engaging than having multiple teams with (nearly) independent player pools. It does happen at schools, say, where the players for each team in P.E. class are picked at random, but fans get engaged with the team identity and the individual players, and team abilities depend in part on long-term shared practice. It's hard to believe that the space programs of the 1960s would have been better had the Soviet and U.S. programs joined forces for a single space program; also, obviously neither space program was based on the direct market forces of capitalism. The military is also not run under a capitalistic basis, and the concept of "single source" for a NATO or UN force is meaningless. It's even a stretch to say that a combined US Army/Navy/Marine operation is a "single source" given the inter-service rivalries. I'm not convinced that a single world government with its own military would be better.