jmcasey@pacific.net.sg wrote:
> The economist Paul Krugman says in *Peddling Prosperity* that one
> of the principal ways non-innovating products/services make money
> above the nominal rate of growth of the money supply is by
> exploiting a monopoly position, hiwever small-scale. You shop at
> 7-11 rather than schlepping all the way down to the Piggly Wiggly
> because 1) you save gas, and/or 2) you can't be bothered. You buy
> over the internet because 1) it's more convenient, 2) you don't
> need the product right now, 3) you know how. On the other hand,
> you buy the same product down at the mall because 1) you don't
> trust the internet, 2) you need the product now, 3) you don't
> know how to use the internet.
This is not what most people mean when they say 'monopoly'. If circumstances are such that someone else can open up an ooperation to compete with yours, you aren't a monopoly in th eusual sense of the word. More to the point, you aren't creating a problem and I therefore am not concerned about finding a way to stop you.
> I'd think that nanotech requires such an enormous upfront outlay
> of capital, at a relatively high risk of the project failing,
> that the only way to develop nanotech successfully is to ensure a
> monopoly, at least for some period following startup.
Nanotechnology is not one big invention. It is a long series of small inventions, each of which has more than enough uses to justify its own development cost independantly. That being the case, there absolutely is no need to worry about how to get it to happen - the only way I can think of to prevent it from being invented is to blow ourselves up (and we don't actually have the ability to do that, anyway).
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
ewbrownv@mindspring.com