Open source, altruism, and the business model problem

Altruism vs. Cooperation: Cooperation isn't always altruistic. As the "gain" of a system increases [1], it takes less and less in the way of reciprocity to justify sharing.

For instance, open source is often compared to barn raisings. The problem with the comparison is that barn raisings are only beneficial at economy-of-scale levels (the interim investment is out of use for a shorter time.) As a result, the reciprocity has to be nearly 100%: your neighbors have to be pretty darn sure that you'll return the favor or the system breaks down.

Open source, on the other hand, produces enormous amounts of net value for value input (high "gain") and therefor even a small amount of reciprocity (one contributor per thousand users, for instance) is enough to produce a net benefit and keep the system viable. Altruism, or faith, or blind optimism, are probably needed to get the ball rolling but at some point it becomes self-sustaining.

How this applies to blogging, I can't say.; Posted by: Yagotta B. Kidding Posted on: 05/09/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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Altruism vs. Cooperation Yagotta B. Kidding | 05/09/05

Business models rapson | 05/09/05

Explanation DanaBlankenhorn

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