[berdario]

I think there's a kernel of truth in what you said, but you're also talking about avoiding accidental "income inequality" in this comment, and "economic stagnation" in the other.

It seems like you might've moved the goalpost a bit...

At the end of the day: any entity that works for the public good (be it a co-op, a non-profit or a state owned enterprise[1]) would be a better recipient of the free labour provided by f/oss hobbyists, than a for-profit multinational... And often economic performance is equivocated with financial performance. At the end of the day, if everyone can put food on the table[2] (here and in the developing world), I couldn't care less if some GDP metric might imply that "there's stagnation actually"

[1] My point being, that a SOE will have more bargainining power than a small co-op, and thus be able to fight unequal exchange and compensate for income inequality

[2] "food on the table" is a proxy for: food itself, shelter, healthcare, affordable heating (or cooling) and consumer goods and services (tech gadgets to learn and keep in touch with family, long distance transport to visit relatives, etc.)

[djao]

Goalposts are the entire problem. I read the original article ... Holy wow, undefined goalposts!