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by bali
5702 days ago
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I see where you are coming from and what bugs you in the logic of Graham. None of us denies that there are transaction costs related to operate an "idea market", we just seem to argue about their amount/importance/relevance. I say these costs are not the primary reason behind the absence of the market but rather the fact that there are no stable ideas that can be used to found a sustainable business upon. You say there are stable ideas but it would be too costly to operate or even establish a market mechanism. (Although I am sure there would be a charity organization or even the government that would establish the market if it would be mostly a one-time fixed cost and low running expenses such as in the lighthouse example). I should go to sleep now, have to wake up in 2 hours.. (but I really enjoyed the conversation, thx :) (btw, a question - do you really think there is anything that is valuable to people but nobody has ever tried to monetize it if it wasn't banned by authority? Air, love, aesthetics of a building or a landscape, even values and religions... I have seen business models related to all of these) (btw2, it may be worthwhile to define what we mean under "1 idea" :) |
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I didn't mention 'stable'!
What I think is that there are ideas that, at the right point in time, allow people who can execute on them well to do really well. And I think some of those ideas, at least, can be done well by a reasonable number of people. For instance, something like eBay was likely to pop up at that point in time. So for a little while, prior to its inception, it would have been a valuable idea.
However... no, I don't think a market for ideas can be stable due to the non-exclusivity of ideas! Once one is out there, its value drops quite a bit. It's similar to markets for some kinds of information, like knowing the closing price of the DJIA on the 3rd of November. If I knew that today, it'd be worth a lot of money. Next week, it'll be worth nothing.