The Glory of Achievement

It recently occurred to me that the really obvious comparison for what’s going on here is the open source software community back in the 90s. Eric S Raymond’s essay Homesteading the Noosphere, a reference text on the social norms and incentive structure of the free software movement, explains exactly what’s going on. We’re no longer dealing with a ... See more

A number of monetisation models for open-source work have been put forward in the last decade, but none of them has been able to scale and solve the problem in a fundamental way. The reason being, open-source work is a microeconomic singularity — a paradox in capitalism that can’t be corrected with donations, cryptocurrencies, or freemium models. I... See more

I came of age in the Napster days, when only fools spent money on anything digital. Early on, we decided that we’d rather pay for the internet with attention instead of money. This seemed like a good idea at the time, and at first, it was!

It was like having a big party sponsored by Mazda, and all that meant was having the Mazda logo on the Solo cu... See more

The fundamental idea is revolutionary: communities have always created the best stuff; now, they can finally capture the value, which will crowd in more creation.