Economy as a Service

From P2P Foundation
Jump to navigation Jump to search

= the economy as a social software service, a concept proposed by John Robb

Description

John Robb:

"EaaS (economy as a service) is likely to be a categorical term that you are going to hear a lot about in the not too distant future. Why? The EaaS is now in the adjacent possible of technological, societal, and economic development. The current situation is begging for it to be developed.

What is an EaaS? In a nutshell, it is a complete economy -- soup to nuts -- as a software service. " (http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/11/eaas-economy-as-a-service.html)


Characteristics

John Robb:


"These new economies will...

  • be bootstraps and new ventures. Self-organizing structures. Top down efforts, even from established social networks won't work.
  • in most cases fail. Fortunately, there will be lots of them and those that do succeed can grow very, very quickly (scaling to hundreds of millions of participants in a matter of years).
  • be very diverse. Lots of different rule sets will be tried (way beyond the classical *isms).
  • operate within the current economy and against it at the same time. Competition with the current economy for participants. Opt-in to the one that suits your values.
  • change the nature of immigration -- a flight to zones of connectivity. Also, it creates the potential for 'emigration in place.'
  • accelerate the build-out of resilient communities. RCs will often be the local instantiation of the values/rules of the EaaS.
  • often combine social rewards with real world rewards.
  • often use the reward structures of MMOGs.
  • be global. Participants will join from within every country that offers Internet access.
  • often arbitrage global legal systems (like corporations) to reduce their exposure to taxes, regulations, etc.
  • eventually develop and implement technologies (and by extension wealth) at rates far, far faster than the current economy.
  • likely reverse the trend towards urbanization."

(http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/11/eaas-economy-as-a-service.html)