I’ve been trying to think about inputs and outputs. Production and value. The cumulative nature of the value of inputs for various goods. How one tries to add up all the aspects of the factors of production — labor, space, capital — to understand what goes into producing an information good. How those factors are rivalrous and exhaustible, while information goods are not. And then Yochai Benkler helps me see one of the things I’ve been looking past in this system of economic value and production:
“Information is both input and output of its own production process.”
(The Wealth of Networks 37.)
Obvious But True
Benkler is a remarkable writer, I think. Very insightful yet very accessible. I wish I could do that!