Comment by ninetyninenine

>By actually manufacturing and selling aircrafts to airlines? 747s are not infinitely copyable. Discussion has now shifted from ideas to tangible objects.

The raw materials used to create a boeing 747 are not rare at all. They are easily accessible. The aggregate value of material cost of a 747 is significantly less than the actual value of the 747 itself meaning that much of the worth of the 747 is in the crystallization of the idea of what a 747 is. The 747 is at it's core an idea, that's what separates it from just being a just a mishmash of random materials. It is at it's core an IP.

Yes it's not infinitely copyable so it doesn't suffer from the ill effects of software. But they are one in the same, it's just that the 747 has additional protections of the "idea" being encrypted into the plane itself and the people who make the plane. Software the idea is fully crystallized into a single place: the source code and it suffers from being easily copied.

This is where IP law comes from. The idea of a 747 is by nature not easily copied, so people didn't need to instantiate the concept of IP because by default it's just harder to copy. IP was invented because of the distinction between ideas that are easily copied and not easily copied. People wanted to bring the properties of the 747 to software.

>Remains to be seen. There should be no functional difference between raising hundreds of millions from venture capitalists or crowdfunding. We just need to find ways to raise these platforms to the billion dollar scale.

I think we're in agreement. We agree on the benefits and downsides of IP. You just think that altruism could function just as well as the incentives created by IP and it seems you're clear that there is currently no evidence to support your hypothesis other than a smattering of freak anomalies like Linux. Whether that evidence will materialize in the future remains to be seen.