Yes, point made—“free isn’t”. Now, how relevant is it to the point you made above?
You were doing econometrics, and this stuff isn’t absolutely invisible, but it’s much lighter-weight. I can read books and watch movies and send letters and get the news and publish stories for a very modest (0 marginal) monthly fee and watching some ads which, since this isn’t the boom days of the 90s, isn’t even all that much money behind the scenes.
In the old days, so much less of that would have happened, and it was great value—but because it’s so cheap, it’s discounted.
Basically: does the CPI (or whatever inflation measure you’re using) incorporate the (marginal) price of renting a video? … on Youtube? Does it include the price of getting a book? … from an author who put it on the net?
If people had and did all the things we do for each other now, but without any additional money flying around began putting up beautiful artwork everywhere that made everyone’s life an utter joy… the economic indicators wouldn’t notice.
Yes, point made—“free isn’t”. Now, how relevant is it to the point you made above?
You were doing econometrics, and this stuff isn’t absolutely invisible, but it’s much lighter-weight. I can read books and watch movies and send letters and get the news and publish stories for a very modest (0 marginal) monthly fee and watching some ads which, since this isn’t the boom days of the 90s, isn’t even all that much money behind the scenes.
In the old days, so much less of that would have happened, and it was great value—but because it’s so cheap, it’s discounted.
Basically: does the CPI (or whatever inflation measure you’re using) incorporate the (marginal) price of renting a video? … on Youtube? Does it include the price of getting a book? … from an author who put it on the net?
If people had and did all the things we do for each other now, but without any additional money flying around began putting up beautiful artwork everywhere that made everyone’s life an utter joy… the economic indicators wouldn’t notice.
See also this exercise from an economics textbook.