by
Jaron Lanier
We do have rules in place to charge commercial concerns for using the public airwaves. Maybe that model could be extended to information flows in general. The argument would be that every citizen contributes to the information space whether they want to or not. Everyone is measured and tracked in the network age. So why not have government collect compensation for the use of that value in order to fund social welfare?
his argument against this (on the next page) is that we should instead go "all the way" and treat information as genuinely valuable which, I would argue, is NOT going all the way
he also characterises such an endeavour (of granting licenses) as potentially limiting new ventures (putting a "political choke hold on expression") which is ofc bad
my response to this is: does he not realise that governments (or at least all governments with sovereign money) can print their own money or ...?