the cost of acquiring information can be paid for with a derivative asset that is correlated to its utility in society. in this way we no longer need patents. innovators do not have to pay the fees associated with patents and the economy does not need to suffer an artificial monopoly, all while still providing incentive to research and innovate.
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how is information not more valuable as more people use it? that seems to go against the entire premise of the open source movement.
I do not get the first part at all. How would a derivative asset correlate to the utility of society ? How would it be determined ?
Information has many different categories. The 4 off hand that have may different answers to your questions.
1) General advances. Medical, engineering etc.
More valuable to society when more use it, but not necesarily more value to those acquiring it. Their skills are diluted, more competition etc.
2) Entertainment. You'd need to define value to the consumer or value to the producer in a way similar to the above.
3) Exploitive knowledge that is not widely know. The value plummets as more use it. Similar to category 1.
4) Open source ? I may derive value in using it, but that doesn't mean that I receive more value as more people use it.
Really this is a semantic issue and you need to be more precise in defining value and to whom.