[p2p-research] Funding an Ecosystem Prototype (was: User Freedom and the Purpose of Profit)

[Patrick Anderson]

Kevin Carson wrote:
> To me the problem with this whole system is that the owner of
> resources seems to get very little out of agreeing to license his
> enterprise under such rules

This is similar to the one of the reasons a computer programmer would
choose to license the results of his labor under the GNU GPL.

In both cases, there are benefits from the resulting ecosystem of
payers who add their own specialized labor - causing the project to
grow outside of your power, becoming a living entity independent of
individual desires to stop it.


> aside from a lot of extra administrative
> hoops to jump through.

Yes, the way I describe it seems nit-picking.  I was trying to be
exact in my explanation, but we could lighten-up on the precision to
begin such ecosystems in prototype .

We could loosen in our implementations by investing only a small % of
the Profit for the Payer while paying-out the rest to various
participants, including the traditional VC investors and of course the
Workers.

This could allow us to begin as a hybrid corporation similar to what
Suresh and others are working toward.


> The owner's prices would be driven down
> to production cost through the automatic function of the market,
> without a lot of paperwork and administrative complications.

One thing I've noticed about even pure* Capitalism is that it always
requires more than one Physical Source to bring Profit down.  And even
then there is Profit hidden in high wages and other requirements.

But even if the Prices were identical in both systems, there would
still be the problem that I, as end user, do not have dominion over
those Physical Sources - and so cannot do the work myself and do not
have much of a say over things except to beg those owners.


(*) Where governments provide none of the special favors they currently do.