A little-understood fact.

A classic pattern in technology economics, identified by Joel Spolsky, is layers of the stack attempting to become monopolies while turning other layers into perfectly-competitive markets which are commoditized, in order to harvest most of the consumer surplus; discussion and examples.

В общем-то, от переработки одежды толка нету.

How do you know what hourly rate you are worth? What factors should be taken into account? Here are my criteria.

To my projects only paid hosting seems applicable.

История одной из самых загадочных сделок в российском ретейле

... we are heading to the world where 10% of population would be able to produce all the goods needed.

... How is the 90% going to make their living?

They are not. If nothing changes they are going to die of hunger. And even worse, once that happens there will be only 10% of the population left, so the market shrinks to one tenth of its original size. At that point only only one tenth of the survivors — 1% of the orginal population — will be needed to produce all the goods. Thus, 9% will be left with no work to do and will also die of hunger. Now, of course, the demand plummets to 1% of what it used to be in the past and, given the improved efficiency, only 0.1% is needed to satisfy it. 0.9% is left with no work, is starved to death etc. Vicious circle perpetuates until the last human being dies of hunger.

All in all, there are three possible solutions:

1. Decrease efficiency

2. Work less

3. Consume more

I think the initial problem is wrong. We still need at least some millions of people to sustain the world. We can't go to one person in the limit who will manage a farm, a factory and an internet server all by themselves.

The author says the proposed three solution won't solve the problem long term. Yeah, they won't. They aren't solving it now. Says a universal basic income might help, but says it's a topic for another day.

See also /408

They predicted we would have to work less now. We work the same, and we have a lot of “bullshit jobs”. I don't like name, but the term seems to be popular, so I'll stick with it for now. Why such jobs emerge? People need work, and if there is no real work, they are fine with fake work.