Full Circle Associates

A nice article in the Economist about the The economics of sharingTechnology increases the ability of people to share, but will they share more than just technology?

BY NOW, most people who use computers have heard of the “open source” movement, even if they are not sure what it is. It is a way of making software (and increasingly, other things as well), which relies on the individual contributions of thousands of programmers.... therefore, open source involves two things: putting spare capacity (geeks' surplus time and skill) into economic production; and sharing.

Economists have not always found it easy to explain why self-interested people would freely share scarce, privately owned resources. Their understanding, though, is much clearer than it was 20 or 30 years ago: co-operation, especially when repeated, can breed reciprocity and trust, to the benefit of all....

...The characteristics of information—be it software, text or even biotech research—make it an economically obvious thing to share. It is a “non-rival” good: ie, your use of it does not interfere with my use. Better still, there are network effects: ie, the more people who use it, the more useful it is to any individual user. Best of all, the existence of the internet means that the costs of sharing are remarkably low. The cost of distribution is negligible, and co-ordination is easy because people can easily find others with similar goals and can contribute when convenient.

The question is, can sharing be used to supply more than just information?

Good question! This seems to link by to my previous post on Global Public Goods (GPGs) which seem to suggest that information might be one of the lever to increase supplies of other things -- like food where there is not enough.

[via Downes via Robin Good]

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