Asleep in class?

I don't mean to pick on Andrew Welch, but his article is a good example of a recent trend that annoys me.

People who want to make an economic argument should use and understand economics.

An argument that says that marginal cost of software is 0 and so the cost of software should approach 0 would be welcome (even though it's kind of silly).

His article ignores one of the fundamental principles of economics, ie. that the consumer always chooses what is in their own best interest (with respect to the information that they have). If you were doing an analysis of OSS you might include the idea that the person choosing to 'give away' their software must be doing it because of a far greater "utility" that they get from it.

... I should get some more advanced econ. books so I can calculate the effects that so often aren't considered by people who claim to understand econ.

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