Newsgroups: comp.archives.admin Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!world!srctran From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: Where are Adam Smith's/Karl Marx's grandchildren? Message-ID: Sender: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Organization: The World Distribution: comp.archives.admin Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1991 04:13:51 GMT Lines: 23 Ed's recent attempts to have comp.archive grow as a process really illustrates how lacking we are in developing economic models to handle information as a commodity. Current hardware and communications technology is almost to the point where everyone has a Cray at home talking to each other. This occurance was possible because computer hardware and communication equipment are classic commodities. I claim that information is not, and my proof is empirical - I do not consider that is information is being handled very efficiently. My belief is that an information economy will be different from the present economy, and this will come to happen either by companies who figure this out and make the transition first, or by some collective effort that starts out in the universities and government laboratories. I know that if the government is going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars adding more hardware and communication capacity to the networks (i.e. NREN), it should be willing to put about many tens of millions of dollars exploring the economics of an information economy. Then maybe the problems that Ed is raising can be addressed more formally. By the way, given sufficient backing and market access, I figure what Ed is doing is worth over one hundred million dollars a year (or actually what Ed is doing, and what I do). Greg Aharonian Source Translation & Optimization