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I used to believe it until about 7 years ago, when I started to build an open source alternative to the rentseeking Big Tech industry. Too much of Web2 and Web3 was based around the profit motive, and no one stuck around long enough to replicate their stack and give it to the people:

https://github.com/Qbix/Platform

https://github.com/Intercoin

I believe in gift economies (science, wikipedia, open source) being superior to capitalism and private ownership of platforms.

Instead of Zuck, Elon and Bezos we could use more Linus, TimBernereLee and Vitalik.



I think as long as they don‘t get entrenched (usually by regulatory moats that prevent disruption) these go hand in hand. Creating a novel product/service and generating product market fit is kind if like science. Even if they get rich from it, now the whole world knows forever that this is a particular way to create value. As long as it is not driven by subsidies or caters other government linked industries that could skew/bias the value signal the demonstration as well as the offering of these goods and services is a net good imo


Not for nothing but literally every person you cited, good and bad, came from well off families who built that wealth via capitalism. We'd be better off fixing the wealth disparity and making it so there are more people with a safety net that allows them to engage in gift economies like the open source software world.

It is difficult to be charitable when you have to worry where your next meal comes from.


You're right. That's why I believe in UBI and Universal Health Insurance as well. I speak about this quite a bit, and build it too:

https://community.intercoin.app/t/new-ubi-movement-mayors-ci...

https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees


A lot of people employed by tech companies are paid by their companies to contribute to open source projects which the company uses, so the gift economy is still deeply tied with capitalism despite the appearance.




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