Who pays volunteers on Wikipedia, Linux, BSD, Webkit, Chromium, PHP, Python and all those other technologies and languages who have taken over the world? Is TimBL rich through extracting rents from all users of HTTP?

Vitalik is mega-rich from selling his tokens once, and now he doesn’t control the network. That is the alternative I am talking about. The developers of a successful project make buck but then the project becomes bigger than them. There were was an article posted the other day from an open source author complaining that they are now being required to use two-factor authentication before they can continue releasing their product. They said “well, I guess I don’t pay for the distribution platform, so I will take what I can get.” But they are missing the point entirely — the distribution platform isn’t supposed to serve the one author/maintainer. It’s supposed to serve the public! Those are the actual customers, and even if the author pays $1,000,000 a month to such a service, the value to the public of NOT having a security backdoor on the next update can become far, far greater. At some point, what you built just becomes bigger than you.

That’s why science has peer review, wikipedia has talk pages and open source commits have reviewers before merging the code. No one wants something to be rolled out at 5am on the whim of one guy, EVEN IF he has two factor authentication.

There is a fundamental, fundamental difference in mindset between on the one hand the celebrity culture we have on Twitter, and various entertainment, and the peer review culture of science, wikipedia and open source. The latter is far more useful to society.

In fact, most of our divisions and strife in demicracies is a result of for-profit news media trying to write one-sided outrage articles with clickbait titles because the market selects for that, while our social network algorithms surface this and put us in angry echo chambers because that leads to the most “engagement” (and therefore, profit). Once you see it, the profit motive IS WHAT CORRUPTS these networks. Wikipedia and Linux may have their faults, but not these.

Who pays the volunteers? No one. They have enough financial stability to spend an hour here and there making a commit. There doesn’t need to be a billion dollar investment by any party to advance the thing forward. They’re like ants… and it beats closed profit-driven silos in the end.

>Who pays volunteers on Wikipedia, Linux, BSD, Webkit, Chromium, PHP, Python

In order: Wikimedia Foundation, various companies, various companies, Apple, Google, various companies, various companies. Most of those developers are paid. The wikipedia editors are unpaid volunteers, but the IT staff isn't.

You asked about the volunteers, not the paid staff. The vast, vast majority of contributions on eg wikipedia comes from unpaid contributors.

No, I asked my question assuming we lived in the world you’re suggesting where all software is built by volunteers in a utopian gift economy. I am asking who pays your volunteers. The question is semi-rhetorical.

The answer as GP points out is that in the majority of these cases open source software is still funded by capitalists. Wikipedia content presumably being largely a volunteer effort doesn't change this. Something still has to fund Wikipedia's existence. Wikipedia and signal for example are funded by nonprofits. I quite like this model which is why I suggested it in my previous comment.

The main point is that you can’t just tell everyone to work for free and still call it capitalism or even expect it to work at all. That’s what it sounds like you’re suggesting… I like your challenge to the capitalism/socialism dichotomy. I think your solution is lacking some sophistication in understanding how the open source landscape works, what motivates people and how to yield production, and is kinda out of touch with reality.

I think it’s quite the reverse: rather than being out of touch with reality, it is based on behavioral economic studies of reality ignored by capitalists. Watch for example this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rbR2V1UeB_A

The way they would be able to contribute is that the UBI would allow them to negotiate shorter workweeks. They’d use the time for other things, like taking care of their own children and parents, rather than sticking them in a nursing home and public schools.

My solution also helps women close the pay gap: https://magarshak.com/blog/?p=286

Honestly I’m not even sure what we’re talking about anymore. I definitely agree we need a way as a society to have families raise their own kids and break the power couple plus daycare dynamic. But I doubt a volunteer economy would achieve those results. We need to make homemaker a socially prestigious occupation and provide people doing that role more of a support system and structure so they can participate in the economic machine and feel/be valued the same way “breadwinners” are. Then they’ll be seen and see themselves as equals.

Also the Atlassian example in the video is meh. The people aren't working for free. They’re working for a paycheck. The company just lets them have autonomy for one day a quarter. So 4 days a year they get to work on what they want instead of what their managers want and this is your example of how a volunteer economy supported by UBI will work? Have you paid any attention the last 2 years? People don't work if they don't have to feed their family and pay the mortgage… I think you’re conflating innovation with grunt work. Until we have robots to do all the grunt work, UBI is a pipe dream. And I say that wanting it for myself just as much as the next person… so I’m with you there.

I would not assume the latter

It is easy to check in a variety of ways, including calling their API of contributors. Where would Wikipedia get the money to oay this vast army of people? And even if they did, divide the amount they raised by the number of contributors and tell me if it is a meaningful amount compared to what employees are paid in the capitalist company model.

It isn't Wikipedia that is hiring or paying the contributors I refer to