Newsgroups: comp.archives.admin
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!world!srctran
From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Subject: Where are Adam Smith's/Karl Marx's grandchildren?
Message-ID: <SRCTRAN.91Jun22231351@world.std.com>
Sender: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Organization: The World
Distribution: comp.archives.admin
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1991 04:13:51 GMT
Lines: 23

    Ed's recent attempts to have comp.archive grow as a process really
illustrates how lacking we are in developing economic models to handle
information as a commodity. Current hardware and communications technology
is almost to the point where everyone has a Cray at home talking to each
other. This occurance was possible because computer hardware and communication
equipment are classic commodities. I claim that information is not, and my
proof is empirical - I do not consider that is information is being handled
very efficiently.
     My belief is that an information economy will be different from the
present economy, and this will come to happen either by companies who figure
this out and make the transition first, or by some collective effort that
starts out in the universities and government laboratories.
     I know that if the government is going to spend hundreds of millions of
dollars adding more hardware and communication capacity to the networks (i.e.
NREN), it should be willing to put about many tens of millions of dollars
exploring the economics of an information economy. Then maybe the problems
that Ed is raising can be addressed more formally.
     By the way, given sufficient backing and market access, I figure what
Ed is doing is worth over one hundred million dollars a year (or actually
what Ed is doing, and what I do).

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
