[LAU] OT - Digital Rights

[Paul Davis]

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Louigi Verona <louigi.verona at gmail.com> wrote:
> Additionally, I question the usefulness of such analysis, as simply knowing
> how much money went into
> something and how much of that investment was returned says very little
> about the issue and the
> validity of concepts behind it.

there's no reason to worry about establishing the value of something
if you haven't actually managed to create it yet.

if you can create something without an "investment" in it, that can
lead to some fairly cool things. but for the most part, it tends to
involve an investment of either time, or money, or both. the act of
doing this is "an economic analysis" whether its done explicitly or
not. it means that for one reason or another someone values whatever
it is they are creating more than the other things they might spend
their time and/or money on.

if you have lots of surplus time or lots of surplus money, making that
decision is relatively easy. if you're working on something that feels
like your life's purpose (for now, at least) then making that decision
is relatively easy. these two cases might be so easy that the people
making the choice might not even notice that they are making it. but
most people find themselves somewhere in the middle of these extremes,
and thus they do tend to have to give at least a little thought to how
to allocate (limited) resources to the different things that they
would like to do or to have.