Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

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Re: Scarcity (was: Re: Because...)

Author:	Seth Gordon
Posted:	8/25/2000; 10:33:19 AM
Topic:	Next survey: Are you an open source developer?
Msg #:	20220 (In response to 20210)
Prev/Next:	20219 / 20221

I second the endorsement of DeLong.

In one of his essays, he talks about "experience goods". A movie, for example, is an experience good. You don't really know how much you'll enjoy a movie -- and therefore, how much the experience of seeing the movie is worth to you -- until you've seen it. Furthermore, once you've seen the movie, if you decide you paid too much, there's no way to "give back" the experience of seeing the movie in exchange for a refund. So how does (and how should) a free market set prices for experience goods? This question fascinates many economists, especially since the "New Economy" seems to have a lot more experience goods (like software) floating around than the old one.

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