[microtonal]

If neither extreme nor minimal economic freedom would address the issue, how could some intermediate level do any better?

Simple. Both extremes concentrate power eventually (in the state or in megacorps). Somewhere in the middle, you have an open and capitalist market, but the government keeps large cooperations in check, and the population keeps the government in check.

It can be argued that the EU strives to follow this model (although imperfectly). E.g. by enforcing net neutrality, being relatively active at breaking down cartels, regulating roaming costs (since the industry kept them artificially high), etc.

Of course, it's never perfect, because the circumstances are never perfect. So, you have to finetune and adapt.

[logicchains]

>Both extremes concentrate power eventually (in the state or in megacorps). Somewhere in the middle, you have an open and capitalist market, but the government keeps large cooperations in check, and the population keeps the government in check.

What in this middle ground would prevent Apple from buying FoundationDB? I can't see this happening in any middle-ground countries like Europe.

[TheOtherHobbes]

That's not an ideal question because it assumes that Apple and FDB already exist as technology owning/creating entities.

What if there were no large corporations at all? What if IP and status/cash-flow were set up as the property of individuals and/or small teams who collaborated on a per-project basis?

You could have a system where IP was still shared in a completely open way, remaining free for non-commercial use, but commercial use would require a per-use payment, and commercial modification would attract a revenue share of its own if it was useful to a market.

This might not be ideal - it doesn't solve the problem of actually making stuff, for example. (There are possible answers to that, but they're even weirder.)

But it shows it's at least possible to begin to think about systems that don't have dinosaur corporations stomping around the ecosystem predating anyone and anything who's small and interesting.

And it specifically solves the problem of useful IP being removed or suppressed just because it can be.