[Discuss] Material vs Information Economy

Fri Feb 10 08:38:03 UTC 2017

Hi Marcin and all.

Your question is "What is the relative size of the material economy vs
information economy?". It is a nice question.

May I ask you this question: In information economy, there might be
journalism, advertising, training, education, advices, books, etc ...
Them, do you mean, "software" [3] instead of "information" ? (The size
of software industry might be found more relatively easily, see for
example: [4])

However, the only way to answer it, would be to ask to people who have
been tracking all national GDPs [1] for long. Maybe The World Bank [2]
would a great entrance. Asking to those GDP trackers if they have
already aggregated global "software economy" pack and global "material
economy" pack, would be a great idea. However, identifying the part of
software into the computer field might be very tricky: computers are
delivered with default software, but their identification is not done.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product
[2]: http://databank.worldbank.org/data/home.aspx
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_industry#Size_of_the_industry

It is a nice question ...

Love and Peace,
Freely,
Antoine C.

Le 09/02/2017 à 20:29, Matt Maier a écrit :
> 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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>>>> Executive Director
>>>> Open Source Ecology
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>>>>
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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
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>>>
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>
>
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