Originally Posted by
PhilosopherStoned
I don't think that art is the major part of a technological economy. Hard goods would still have to be bought as I've already outlined. Nobody would have a monopoly on the production of any given device. Anybody could build and sell any device that they were able to create. Again, as I've outlined, changes to the designs could be made incrementally and would provide short term, selective advantages until the changes propagated to the other manufactures at which point a new idea for an incremental change occurred. This is mirroring a process in nature but I just can't think of which one it is right now ... ;)
But this isn't a necessary implication at all. For hard goods, it's not at all unthinkable that a mid size company (which I think is what would be rapidly selected for: we can discuss if you want) would be able to hire a few people to "tinker" and improve things. This is a very effective way of working. Incrementally, one small step at a time. The fact of the matter is that a lot of the jobs that are involved in creating IP are enjoyable to a certain percentage of the population. That is, they are the sort of thing which people would do for a hobby. While their would certainly still be companies paying people to come up with ideas, a larger portion of the work could be taken over by hobbyists. I have no problem with that. It's worked great with software. You say that that's not a valid point because software costs nothing to produce but that's a small obstacle to get around. It would be in the interest of the companies to fund efforts to get the necessary tools and education into the hands of people that wanted them and were qualified to play. It would allow them to share and distribute the cost of coming up with new ideas. It's always seemed that people that are "playing" (that is, genuinely enjoy what they are doing) are far more effective than people that are "working" (that is would rather be doing something else). Of course there's not fun stuff that needs to be done but (a) some people have the discipline to work through it anyways for the rewards of completing a project and (b) nobody's said that people won't be getting paid to do it other than you. People get paid to work on Linux, Ubuntu, Gnome, etc, because companies have an interest in selling support. Another business model is evolving. I see no reason that this couldn't happen for any other field.
Ultimately, you seem to be arguing from lack of imagination.