[p2p-research] Marginalism - the religion

[Patrick Anderson]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Diego Saravia <diego.saravia at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: [ox-en] Marginalism - the religion
To: list-en at oekonux.org


2009/4/21 Patrick Anderson <agnucius at gmail.com>:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Diego Saravia <diego.saravia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "production" (duplication)
>
> There is far more to production than duplication.
>

fixed costs



> Living things such as a Strawberry plant can be thought of as pure
> design (DNA) that has been applied to the minerals and organic matter
> causing the plant to grow and reproduce (duplicate).

organic matter is scarce, the same as pre internet info goods, they
are always related to a physical object

you need paper to carry your book, more paper for more books

you need live beings to carry DNA

you can reproduce a lot of files without  any aditional cost


>> of info goods is only a copy of bytes, 0 marginal cost
>

marginal is the key word

> We cannot ignore the ecologic Costs of even 1 bit!

I am not speaking about ecology

> Are costs Marginal for moving 64k from one memory location to another?
>  Would a programmer agree with you?

It cost nothing more to me  to move 64k from my machine to your machine via mail
than not moving the bytes.


> Are TeraBytes across the globe Marginal?  What is BitTorrent?

I do not pay anything more to use bittorrent than not using it, in
fact I could save money in music.

>
> Is sharing copies locally cheaper?

no

>Are those savings always only Marginal?

yes for me.


> In either case, do the copper wires cost nothing to mine, smelt,
> purify, cast/form, finish, cover, ship, store and sell?

you already pay for it


> What about the electricity?  What about the noise?  What about the
> heat?  The pollution?

my machine is always on


>
>> if you have internet
>
> That's no small if!

yes, digital divide exits, two societies (perhaps more)

I agree, is not a small if, is the fundamental fact about the info societies



> Who gets the internet for Free as in Beer?

for me is not free, but I always pay the same.

> This view of reality is so perplexing to me.

I understand your point, but is not related to mine.

> How can such barriers to entry be so ignored?

I do not ignore them, I am speaking about  other stuff.


> Price matters!

yes

> And we are all being overcharged.

could be, I dont know.

>> the only scarcity is "artificial" , copyright law

> But it is possible to use Copyright and maybe even Patents in our favor.

yes, by a hack.

> Without Copyright there could be no Copyleft, and without Copyleft,

we would  not need copyleft if we do not have copyright




> When users (consumers) have "at cost" access to the sources of
> production (both informational and physical), then competition is
> maximized because every potential worker can vie for that job without
> external 'owners' getting in the way - for in this case the user and
> owner are the same.

yes

>
>
>> so info goods are not economic goods
>
> This is what I don't understand.


economics goods

useless definition  (for my perspective)
Definition of Economic Goods: An economic good is a physical object or
service that has value to people and can be sold for a non-negative
price in the marketplace.
http://economics.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-economic-good.htm


more enlighted definition (in my terms)

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/economic-goods.html
Consumable item that is useful to people but scarce in relation to its
demand, so that human effort is required to obtain it. In contrast,
free goods (such as air) are naturally in abundant supply and need no
conscious effort to obtain them.
---
off course these is true for info goods marginally

you are in or not.

> What about the owners of the physical sources needed to *host* those
> informational goods?

fixed costs

> Are the cost of creating and maintaining Google's server-farms marginal?

yes, for me




--
Diego Saravia
Diego.Saravia at gmail.com
NO FUNCIONA->dsa at unsa.edu.ar
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