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[...] By qualifying loan applicants, Lending Club is managing a commons resource for lenders. Once it became clear that Lending Club was a source of potential borrowers, big financial firms realized they could take advantage of this commons. Hedge funds were the first institutions to join the oppor…

As an openness movement grows, the smart money learns how to work with it. Sometimes that smart money comes from those who seemed to be threatened: IBM was an establishment software company with its own operating system, which learned to love Linux, and the music industry learns to put ads on (and …

The Web 2.0 platforms in the cultural industry have taken advantage of the winner-take-all tendencies of digital markets to take money from each and every transaction (by advertising or by direct sales) and have used their position, standing between the consumer and the service provider, to build e…

Linux is no longer the product of “part-time hacking.” Most of the programmers who work on the project earn a good living for doing so, just as do those who work on proprietary software. The companies that sponsor and contribute to Linux do not do so out of the generosity of their hearts, they do s…