[hpatel]

You nailed it. The key problem is 'demand' is determined only by whoever has money. Capitalism works because each person gets a say in what is important and creates value for them. The problem is that if you don't have above a certain amount of money, you don't get much of a say. In the age of immense income inequality, this completely distorts the 'demand' generation aspect of capitalism.

What if we divorced 'demand'(what creates value for each person) from money (payment for value created) and gave all actors an equal right to determine demand irrespective of their ability to pay? We are working on building such a world.

[anamax]

> What if we divorced 'demand'(what creates value for each person) from money (payment for value created) and gave all actors an equal right to determine demand irrespective of their ability to pay?

Demand is already divorced from ability to pay - anyone can "demand" anything. The "problem" is that suppliers don't care about demand. They only care about being paid.

If a million people demand X but are unwilling to pay for it while 10 people demand Y and are willing to pay for it, why am I going to produce X instead of Y?

[hpatel]

Divorcing ability to pay doesn't necessarily have to mean nobody pays.

We are already beginning to see the early stages of such a system. All freemium services are in essence an example of such a system and therefore by extension most startups.

Gmail satisfies the demand of millions of customers for an email service but doesn't ask them to pay. This doesn't mean gmail doesn't make gains.

Currently, the primary funder of such services are ad and brand agencies.

What if we lived in a world where any individual could basically play the role that ad/brand agencies play in supporting freemium services today?

[anamax]

> All freemium services are in essence an example of such a system

No, they aren't. They exist because sufficient people pay.

> and therefore by extension most startups.

Do you really think that a significant number of startups are freemium?

> Currently, the primary funder of such services are ad and brand agencies.

Not at all. They're funded by "heavy users" - see dropbox.

Ad supported is not freemium.

[hpatel]

You are right. I was describing free - not freemium. Though, technically even freemium is an example of where a large number of people don't pay in the direct exchange. The monetization model divorces payment from the direct beneficiary - that's the key takeaway.

[anamax]

> The monetization model divorces payment from the direct beneficiary - that's the key takeaway.

No. Freemium divorces payment from SOME direct beneficiaries.

However, the total cost, and then some, is paid by other direct beneficiaries. Is your scheme any different?

Note that freemium doesn't always work. For example, a freemium automobile company is unlikely to work. Advertising supported "free to end user" automobiles won't work either.

So, how does your proposed model work? Be sure to explain when it works and when it doesn't. (If you claim that it works for every product/service, you're wrong.)

[creamyhorror]

We have this 'equal right' in the form of one-man-one-vote (democracy), but that doesn't stop the richest actors from exercising great influence over the results overall. In the end, the ability of wealth to buy marketing and power will always exist.

I would like to see inequality reduced, but it seems like the 'right to create equal demand' has been provided already. There's always more work to be done, I guess.