Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rphroy!ox.com!heifetz!emv From: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti) Newsgroups: comp.archives.admin Subject: Re: Where are Adam Smith's/Karl Marx's grandchildren? Message-ID: <1991Jun23.131629.7869@msen.com> Date: 23 Jun 91 13:16:29 GMT References: Distribution: comp.archives.admin Organization: MSEN, Inc. -- Ann Arbor, MI Lines: 47 > what Ed is doing is worth over one hundred million dollars a year Send your checks to MSEN Inc. 628 Brooks Ann Arbor MI 48104 When I get to a hundred million I'll let you know :-) A few things I'd like to bring up about the economics of the situation, so far as I can see them. First, what I'm doing (combing netnews for source announcements) is not new, and the technology I'm currently using is pitiful. In the securities industry, traders have relatively sophisticated screens on their desks combing the news wires for information about the value of firms, things which might change that, hot-breaking news, and deals in progress. Granted, they're culling that information from a news wire which is relatively structured (unlike netnews), so the job is easier. There's already millions of dollars a year, very likely more than that, going at the same problem -- unfortunately not much of that technology has (yet) leaked back to usenet. The market for "freely available software" is marked by great uncertainty of information, high search costs, and wide dispersal of location. In terms of classical economics, this is not a perfectly competetive market, because that market assumes that consumers have perfect information about the goods and services they choose to consume. A production like the MSEN Archive Service / comp.archives should be able to add value (and possibly extract revenues) from several sources, namely - consumers of freely available software, who are willing to pay for higher quality information if it reduces their search costs enough; - producers of freely available software, who are willing to pay for the opportunity to have their products effectively marketed and to gain in their knowlege of other complementary (or competing) technologies; - wholesalers of network bandwidth, who are willing to pay to get services which would make more effective use of their networks, and who would seek a competetive advantage over other competing ``regional networks'' by providing more effective network information services; - retailers of network access, a la UUNET, or Compuserve, or GENIE, who would seek to gain customers for their pay-for-service by providing them with reliable information on the quality and location of new software resources. Your guess is as good as mine where the eventual payoff is going to be, i.e. who is going to fund the efforts. --Ed