Re: Python (was Re: I did not inhale)

On 2024-08-20 15:09, David Brown wrote:

On 20/08/2024 10:27, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

On 2024-08-20 09:44, David Brown wrote:
>

I think your line of reasoning was too simplistic to be realistic.  It is simply not the case that you have to have price reflecting cost to make a market, or that you have to have a market to have competition, or that you have to have competition to have quality.  None of these is true in general (even taking into account that the term "market" could be defined in many ways).  Each of them is true in some cases, but even that does not mean they follow as logical consequences.

There are plenty historic examples illustrating the point.

Yes, and that is the problem. Not really a unique problem, e.g. books, music records etc.

 Those are different situations again, but certainly closer than the production of "wotsits".  Traditionally, books and records have relevant unit costs as well as base "development" costs, and then much of their later income comes from sources invisible to end users (like film rights or royalties).
 I don't think any of this is a "problem", it is simply that you can't wildly mix simplified (or invented) "economic facts" in totally different situations.

It is a problem of rewarding the authors.
There is a whole spectrum of economic systems which redistribute costs this or that way. Beginning with slavery. Free market is the best so far.

It often surprises me that economic theories give any usable results at all.

Economy is not a science, it need not to produce any results. But it can explain things. I think that lack of market force explains the state of software developing quite well. But of course there could other explanations.
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Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de