Its not always zero sum. In the best case, a group of workers that could make 1x each on their own, combine and are able to make 1.5x each together, and get paid around 1.2x each.
The additional .3x is the corporate "profit" and is distributed in any number of ways depending on how the company is set up. Its still a rational decision for all of the employees to work there.
Not sure I believe emergentism. While it may be difficult to quantify, I don't find the "whole greater than the sum of its parts," just the perception of the sum being greater than its parts or the reality hiding in the complexity from us mere mortals.
Without emergent properties (your work + my work < our work), it really is a zero sum game. To me, you may be able to manipulate perception of value in this fashion but that's where it ends (which to be fair, is often enough).
No, differential preferences make free exchange a positive sum game (economic surplus/gains from trade). Emergent properties can magnify the value, but are not necessary.
The apple farmer sells apples because (he considers) the money is worth more than the apples. Consumers buy apples because (they consider) the apples are worth more than the money.
My perceived benefit - my compensation to you > 0 (I win = consumer surplus)
My compensation to you - your perceived cost > 0 (You win = producer surplus)
If either one of those is not true, no voluntary exchange takes place. In compelled exchange, only the first needs to be true. This takes various forms, including taxation, robbery, and slavery.
Note that those two equations are from two individual perspectives - I determine my benefit, you determine your cost. If you simplify to "benefit > your cost" and compel the exchange, you get a dystopia - compulsion "for the benefit of all/others/king/etc.", without realizing the full costs to those compelled to sacrifice. Voluntary exchange is required to allow each individual to determine their own benefits and costs.
It would be interesting to try worker co-ops for software... It is a woefully underexplored space. I expect three is /some/ emergent value (eg, I don't really do ux worth a damn...), and a worker co-op could get there without needing to get huge.
Blender is a perfect example of the ideal compromise between "takes 10 clicks to do anything" and "takes 10 days to learn to do anything".
You can start in blender ploddingly wandering though the gui as you discover features and then streamline your workflow with the keyboard shortcuts as you go. As you do so, it feels a lot like leveling up in a particularly good game.
Very few pieces of software currently do this well these days. Its a breath of fresh air. Especially v2.8.
There is Delphi and Lazarus as open-source clone of it
Shhh! Ixnay on the Lazarusay. If people find out, I'll lose my magical secret weapon for blasting out little windows gui apps.
Seriously though, if you ever find yourself needing a few buttons on a windows desktop that do simple things, Lazarus is amazing for whipping that up in a few minutes and still looking professional.
It is kind of funny to compare that early example of a notification, which was likely novel and rare enough to actually be exciting, to today's onslaught of notifications where at least for me it's extremely unlikely that any single notification is anything actually exciting or meaningful
I am becoming more and more convinced that keeping my data and programs on other peoples computers is not a good idea. They can not seem to resist the idea of 'harvesting' information from me to 'monetize' me for a small monthly fee. The PC revolution is over. The smartphone killed it.
> I am becoming more and more convinced that keeping my data and programs on other peoples computers is not a good idea. They can not seem to resist the idea of 'harvesting' information from me to 'monetize' me for a small monthly fee.
This has more to do with “free” services than hosting your data elsewhere.
If that were the case paid services wouldn't be doing it too. The reason they do is that there is no large enough incentive/consequence to make a convincing argument to leave that revenue on the table. It is neither hosting it elsewhere nor the "free" services which tend to be the worst examples of it, but rather the lack of any financially valid reason not to.
My issues is it is that data 'elsewhere' bit that they want. Even when I pay they want to harvest my data. Most of the time it is to do the opposite of what the main article is talking about.
The additional .3x is the corporate "profit" and is distributed in any number of ways depending on how the company is set up. Its still a rational decision for all of the employees to work there.