Has anybody written anything cogent about economic regimes where transmission costs >> production costs?
Cheap Chinese goods
Bottled beverages
Returns under ~$30 (in US)
Crypto transactions with token values < fees
Language! (words are free to make, but distribution has costs)
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I have a hypothesis that the entire economy is shifting to this regime as a share of transaction volume. Economic value is increasingly a function of transmission “distance” and there is a sort of non-fungible cantillon effect along the distribution pathways of everything.
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This general hypothesis followed from a bit of idle speculation that language is basically a shit-NFT economy of 1/n (very large n) token that cost more to transmit than acquire/mint, with value having entirely migrated via economic abstraction to the “unique combinations” level.
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Ie you can still accrue value from coining (!) unique new terms/memes but in general you have to make unique sentences at least to beat the transmission costs
Cantillon-like effects show up as in: a good tweet has value, and RTers/quoters capture rapidly declining value share
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Another large category is geographically fixed experiences. For eg a hiking trail that’s free but costs to get to. I live near Griffith park and go on the observatory hike often. Entirely because I live near enough to walk to it. 99% of value is captured within a 10 mi radius.
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Interesting angle 🤔
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Replying to @vgr
Isn't this just the set of cases where arbitrage can't be expected to be profitable?
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Have you heard of the freight equalisation policy that India tried?
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sounds like the reverse of „Aggregation Theory“, Unbundling, etc.
Cost of Distribution used to substantially shape business models before the internet era, not only in publishing but anything immaterial.
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