By being free forever, there is no incentive for someone to 1-for-1 replicate the same functionality—since there is no additional value capture or risk minimization that comes from doing so. At a societal level, a hyperstructure only needs to be built once. This does not mean there isn’t an incentive to innovate, people will still have the incentiv... See more

This idealistic dream brings to mind Marc Andreessen’s recent confession that the “original sin” of the internet was not building a payments layer into the browser. The paid communities you investigate are an attempt to remedy that sin and ground cyberspace in the material/economic systems that support our livelihoods.

When you think about it on a people level, this danger becomes clear. If those who have been willing to participate in peer production purely for the societal benefit are no longer interested given its financial nature, then we lose the people who are most likely to pursue impact over hype. But if we can do it in a way that allows more of those peo... See more