[Discuss] Material vs Information Economy

Thu Feb 9 19:29:24 UTC 2017

And here's a new paper that was just published.

https://www.academia.edu/31327768/Emergence_of_Home_Manufacturing_in_the_Developed_World_Return_on_Investment_for_Open-Source_3-D_Printers

Using the LulzBot Mini once a week pays itself off in 1-3 years and a
selection of free 3D models has already saved people $4M.

On Feb 9, 2017 07:08, "Matt Maier" <blueback09 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dr. Pearce's paper, Quantifying The Value Of Open Source Hardware, would
> be a good start.
> https://opensource.com/life/15/2/the-worth-of-open-source-hardware-design
>
> On Feb 9, 2017 6:04 AM, "Tom Igoe" <tom.igoe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Feb 9, 2017, at 7:47 AM, Marcin Jakubowski <
>> marcin at opensourceecology.org> wrote:
>>
>> To specify my question, I think I should be asking "What is the relative
>> size of the material economy vs information economy?" Is this a well-formed
>> question?
>>
>>
>> I understand the question, and my questions are aimed at helping to
>> clarify it. I don’t think it is particularly well formed, yet. At least,
>> not for my limited understanding of economics, because it seems to contain
>> a few contradictions and requires a bunch of things to be defined.
>>
>> In order to evaluate it, I’d want to define what industries fall into
>> what sides of the question. I’d guess that it’s probably not a binary. I am
>> not an economist, but I can think of a few industries where it’s impossible
>> to tell whether they are material or information, because their money is
>> generated by both production & sales, and by analysis & speculation based
>> on data. Energy is a big one, which is why I cited it earlier. But so is
>> agriculture (I’m thinking about the amount of money generated by ag futures
>> here, for example).  I’m guessing that the whole “financialization of
>> economies” argument is another way of saying that financiers have figured
>> out how to bind material and informational revenue generation together
>> tightly enough that it’s difficult to separate them.
>>
>> I guess if I were asking the question, I’d start by asking an economist
>> to help shape it a bit more. The more I think about it, the less I can
>> separate the two.
>>
>> I googled Sectors of the economy and this seems to be useful:
>>
>> http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/12436/concepts/sectors-economy/
>>
>> 1. Primary sector: raw materials.
>> 2. Secondary sector: manufacturing, buildings, roads, and any physical
>> infrastructures/facilities
>> 3. Tertiary sector: services including retail, insurance, banking,
>> tourism, restaurants
>> 4. Quaternary sector: education, training, R&D
>> 5. Quinary sector: government
>>
>> 1 and 2 are clearly 100% materially related. The retail part of 3 is
>> based primarily on natural and manufactured resources, so that is part of
>> the material economy. The parts of 4 that relate to material production
>> relate to raw materials and manufacturing. 5 is not the material economy.
>>
>> My question aims at the potential economic impact of open source
>> hardware: is that a billion dollar startup like Google, or is it a trillion
>> dollar startup like nothing prior - in recorded human history?
>>
>> Marcin
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 5:35 AM, Tom Igoe <tom.igoe at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I think you need to be more specific on that “etc” to get good numbers.
>>> For example, is energy hardware or software? Because it’s pretty big.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tom
>>>
>>> On Feb 8, 2017, at 9:37 PM, Marcin Jakubowski <
>>> marcin at opensourceecology.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Friends,
>>>
>>> I'm researching the size of the hardware vs software economy. What is
>>> the latest on the size of the hardware economy (materials, housing,
>>> industry, ag etc) compared to the information economy (software,
>>> information services, education, etc)?
>>>
>>> I heard somewhere that the hardware economy is 80% of the economy. Can
>>> anyone point me to sources?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Marcin
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> *Full Disclosure:* OSE works openly. All conversations in this email are
>> intended to be transparent and subject to sharing, with due respect. OSE
>> does not sign NDAs in order to promote collaboration. All of our work is
>> libre or open source. If you are discussing potential development
>> collaboration, your work must also be open source pursuant to the Open
>> Source Hardware Association definition <http://www.oshwa.org/definition/>
>> .
>>
>> See Global Village Construction Set TED Talk
>> <http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski>. See latest build of Seed
>> Eco-Home
>> <https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/622508883/open-building-institute-eco-building-toolkit/posts/1750160>. Subscribe
>> as a True Fan <http://opensourceecology.org/community/#truefans>. See
>> Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/OpenSourceEcology> for updates.
>> Subscribe to monthly update OSEmail
>> <http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/OSEmail>. Donate to our 501(c)3
>> <http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Other_donation_options>.
>>
>> Marcin Jakubowski, Ph.D.
>> Executive Director
>> Open Source Ecology
>> http://opensourceecology.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> discuss mailing list
>> discuss at lists.oshwa.org
>> http://lists.oshwa.org/listinfo/discuss
>>
>>
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