Internet Economies Done By Wah Suying Lim Jiayi
Internet Economies Done By: Wah Suying Lim Jiayi Faith Chua Wen Xian Banh Yong En
The Gift Economy VS The Commodity Economy Lewis Hyde The Gift: The Erotic Life of Property Points to 2 types of economies: The Gift Economy & The Commodity Economy
The Gift Economy VS The Commodity Economy (Wikipedia) • The prevalent mode of exchange is for goods and services to be given without the explicit agreement of reciprocation. • An overt agreement upon a more-or-less equal exchange before the transaction takes place • Prestige and power are • Status is accorded to those who have the measured by how most. much you give away.
The Gift Economy “Not all economies are based on maximizing personal gain - some are founded on giving” by Gifford Pinchot
The Gift Economy (Wikipedia) • However, such economies usually occurs in a cultural context where there is an expectation either – of reciprocation—in the form of goods or services of comparable value, or of political support, general loyalty, honor to the giver, etc. OR – of the gift being passed on in some other manner.
Traditional Gift Economies (Wikipedia) • The stone age gift economies – Economies of abundance, not scarcity, despite their typical status of objective poverty – Origin: The sharing of food • The Trobriand Islanders refer to a gift as “some food we could not eat, ” even when the gift was not food at all.
Traditional Gift Economies (Wikipedia) • In societies like the Trobriand Islands, one is expected to pass on a gift, instead of selfishly owning it. • In other societies, it is a matter of giving some other gift, either directly in return or to another party.
Traditional Gift Economies (Wikipedia) • To keep the gift and not give another in exchange, though, is reprehensible. • "In folk tales, the person who tries to hold onto a gift usually dies. " (Hyde)
Traditional Gift Economies (Wikipedia) • A true gift economy normally requires gift exchange to be more than simply a back-andforth between two individuals. • A Kashmiri tale tells of two Brahmin women who tried to fulfill their obligations for alms-giving simply by giving alms back and forth to one another. On their deaths they were transformed into two poisoned wells from which no one could drink, reflecting the barrenness of this weak simulacrum of giving.
Examples of Gift Economies • The Pacific Northwest Native American potlatch ritual • Hunter-gatherer societies • A family, in which each generation pays for the education of the next • Religious tithing • Charitable give
The Internet Gift Economy (http: //hubcap. clemson. edu/~sparks/giftecon. html) “In many ways, the scientific/academic community and the Internet can be seen as contemporary examples of partial gift economies: a scientist's or academic's knowledge is not worth anything unless it is given away, shared with other scientists and students through publication or teaching. Similarly, the open-handed ethos of the web encourages a potlatch mentality where people create whole sites for the purpose of giving things away. ”
The Internet Gift Economies (Kylie J. Veale) • The Internet started humbly as an educational resource based on free personal and organizational sharing • Although the internet has been commercialized, there is also a constant rise in the traditionally free varieties along side e-commerce enterprises and feebased content and services.
The Internet Gift Economies (Kylie J. Veale) • Those that continue to champion gift economy principles do so for intangible returns such as reputation and pride • Reciprocity in this ‘circle of gifts’ assumes what is given will come back as others participate (Crawford, 2001).
Motivations for Free Content 1. Anticipated reciprocity. • reciprocity will occur within the group as a whole in a system of generalized exchange. • If each person shares freely, the group as a whole is better off, having access to information and advice that no single person might match. • Wellman and Gulia, 1997 • Existence of outstanding debt
Motivations for Free Content 2. Identity persistence • Well defined and defended group boundary (Ostrom 1990; Kollock and Smith 1996). • Contributing something to the group today in hopes of taking something back later amounts to making a loan to the group. • If the recipients of the loan leave, the system of generalized exchange breaks down.
Motivations for Free Content 3. The effect of contributions on one's reputation • High quality information, impressive technical details in one's answers, a willingness to help others, and elegant writing can all work to increase one's prestige in the community. • Rheingold (1993) WELL
Motivations for Free Content • The inherent nature of online interaction already means that helpful acts are more likely to be seen by the group as a whole. • each of the features encourage reciprocity – ongoing interaction, identity persistence, knowledge of previous interactions, and strong group boundaries
Motivations for Free Content 4. A sense of efficacy • There is a well-developed research literature that has shown how important a sense of efficacy is (e. g. , Bandura, 1995) • making contribution to the group can help a person believe she has an impact on the group and support her own selfimage as an efficacious person
Motivations for Free Content • It may also be the case that as the size of the group increases, one will be more motivated to contribute • The increasing size provides a larger audience and a potentially greater impact for one's actions.
Motivations for Free Content 5. The Need • Rheingold (1993) again draws from the WELL in giving examples of members producing software tools for the communities use after the need for such tools had been discussed. • An ongoing record of the group's discussion is useful here important issues and needs can be discussed and displayed.
Motivations for Free Content 6. The attachment or commitment one can have to the group. • One does what is best for the group by contributing. • However, complete devotion to a group is rare • In general, when a person feels an attachment to the community, their contributions will likely be increased
Motivations for Free Content 7. A simple side-effect of private behavior. • Someone may need to write a particular computer program for his/her own use with no thought to anything other than solving her particular problem at hand. • Having written the program, the costs of sharing and distributing it with others may be near zero
Principle of the internet gift economy • Baird (n. d. ) quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s nineteenth-century essay ‘Gifts’ in explaining the essence of the gift economy; • "The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him. "
Principle of the internet gift economy • Three fundamental principles: – Exchange in the Internet gift economy facilitates reciprocity; – Reciprocity in the form of intangible rewards – Intangible rewards leading to the tangible.
Principle of the internet gift economy • Internet facilitates the reproduction and distribution of products as gifts • Exchange begins with the creation of a product – Web pages, discussions or newsgroups, emails, MP 3’s or other files including software and digitised newspaper and magazine articles. • Despite being available for ‘free’, there is some expectation of return, from either the gift-receiver or the Internet community
Examples of Online Gift Economies • • • Video/Photo Sharing Sites Open source Free Software Blogs Online Forums
Video Sharing: You. Tube • popular free video sharing website which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. • wide variety of site content • You. Tube frequently removes videos that have copyright infringing content. • But generally only when the copyright holder reports them.
Open Source • An open source program has its source code distributed allowing programmers to alter and change the original software as much as they like. (www. bized. ac. uk/educators/1619/business/marketing/lesson/sup_glossary. htm ) • This allows users to create usergenerated software content through either individual effort, or collaboration
Open Source • To eliminate the access costs of the consumer and the creator by reducing the restrictions of copyright. • some argue that open source also relieves society of the administration and enforcement costs of copyright. • Example: Creative Commons
Open Source Software • software whose source code is published and made available to the public • enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. • evolves through community cooperation.
Open Source Software -- Mozilla Firefox • Mozilla Firefox is a graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Cooperation and large community of external contributors • Mozilla Firefox is a crossplatform browser • Firefox is the better choice • And free!
Open Source -- Elephant’s Dream • open source movie production • open call system • a system when end result is made available for re-use by others or in which exclusively open source products are used in the production.
Open Source -- Elephant’s Dream • World’s first open movie. • purpose is primarily to field test, develop and showcase the capabilities of open source software • Released under Creative Commons Attributive License.
Free Software • “Free software” refers to the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. • Three levels of freedom: – The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs. – The freedom to redistribute copies so you can share with your neighbor. – The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Benefits of Free Software • Businesses can take and modify a Free Software project to meet their needs at a lower cost and have greater control over their own software. • Individual users are also free to use, modify and distribute Free Software programs • Thus, it benefits the online community
Benefits of Free Software • Allow us to use software without having to accept an unreasonable license agreement. • By helping the software community, you become eligible to receive help – you've "given, " so you will "get" as well • High status can generate financial profits
Benefits of Free Software • By doing good work on Free Software projects you're making yourself more valuable as a potential job applicant.
Free Software : Linux • Creation of a free shareware LINUX • Started in 1991 as a private research project of a computer science student Linus Torvalds • Linux was developed by Linus alone in the early stage and was when it became a usable program. • The usable program drew enough contributors to help improvise it
How Linux Succeeded • A usable program was available and was shared with the net community. • The program was useful and interesting enough to gather contributors to help improvised it • Protected by the General Public License – ensures modifications by users are shared and reviewed by other users – constant improvement and quality control is ensured.
Online Gifts
What is A Gift? • A gift or present is the transfer of money, goods, etc. , without the direct compensation that is involved in trade. • Exchanging of gifts contributes to social cohesion • Can also be referred to anything that makes the other more happy or less sad, especially as a favor. • Economists have elaborated the economics of gift-giving into the notion of a gift economy
Public Goods • Indivisible • Non-excludable • Risk of non-contribution by receivers may hamper/stop its production • Production of good is challenging
Digital Goods • Non-material goods that exists as information in cyber space • Easy to circulate due to low costs and distribution through cyberspace is almost instantaneous • Online interaction allows easy coordination of efforts
Types of Gifting • Voluntary Payment Mechanisms • Monetary gifting • Content gifting • Purpose gifting
Voluntary Payment Mechanisms • One of the central attributes of the internet • Value of voluntary payment set by intrinsic value defined by gift-receiver. • Voluntary payment schemes available for tangible gift economy reciprocity
Monetary Gifting • Consist of tipping and donation mechanisms. • People feel obligated to give something back to the internet via tangible reciprocity. • Examples of Tipping Mechanisms -Tipster -Potlatch • Examples of Donation -Blogger
Content Gifting • MEMEware. • Loses value over time and has the capacity to satisfy more than one. • Givers who cared about these utilities
Monetary Gifting • Gift-receivers can ensure their reciprocity is recognized by the giver. • There is an immediate and future effect of its tangible reciprocity and a continuation of the Internet gift economy.
Purpose Gifting • Distinctly different to monetary gifts, as products constitute the reciprocity. • Examples of Purpose Gifting: – letusplay. net – GIFTegrity
Purpose Gifting • LETUSPLAY. NET -Helps to remind gifts receiver that purpose gifting reciprocity from their wish list. • GIFTEGRITY -Givers list down the types of help they would want to give other members -Giftees list down the kinds of help they want to receive
THE FIRST FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE GIFT ECONOMY IS A RETURN. RECIPROCITY.
Reciprocity in Gift Economy • The relative or absolute anonymity of the recipient makes it all the more remarkable that individuals volunteer valuable information. • Balance is more likely to occur within a group as a whole, than with a particular individual. generalized exchange • More generalised and riskier than traditional gift exchange. • temptation is to take more than to give.
Facilitating Reciprocity • reciprocity is usually delayed. • can be either direct or indirect. • indirect reciprocity is risky.
Intangible Rewards • Reputation citation, awarded recognition. • Anticipated reciprocity peer-to-peer music exchanges karma • Self-esteem. satisfaction from popularity sense of need for the gift
Tangible Rewards • the giver might feel that intangible rewards are not enough. • an imbalance of lurking and free-riding on the Internet • commodity-economy models as replacement reward. paid and free Internet content.
The Limits of Online Cooperation To maintain a cooperative online community, the following is absolutely necessary: (1) ongoing interaction (2) identity persistence (3) knowledge of previous interactions (4) efforts of contributors are recognized (5) well defined and defended group boundaries
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