An additional point worth noting is that there is tremendous social value in reducing coordination costs, but it’s nearly impossible to capture that value, so it’s very under-provided.
What does lowering coordination costs look like? Trade meetups, conferences, and similar events or locations to foster communication and coordination (Like EA and LW meetups and forums,) as well as trustworthy information sharing—which is costly to individuals and mostly benefits others. (Like Givewell, which provides analysis that doesn’t benefit itself, so it is a largely trusted broker.)
I’d be very interested in thinking about what other general strategies could exist—they seems like great targets for world optimization.
Definitely sometimes true, but there are also many areas where the agent doing the coordination is the one extracting all the profit (like most marketplaces). Related: Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement
An additional point worth noting is that there is tremendous social value in reducing coordination costs, but it’s nearly impossible to capture that value, so it’s very under-provided.
What does lowering coordination costs look like? Trade meetups, conferences, and similar events or locations to foster communication and coordination (Like EA and LW meetups and forums,) as well as trustworthy information sharing—which is costly to individuals and mostly benefits others. (Like Givewell, which provides analysis that doesn’t benefit itself, so it is a largely trusted broker.)
I’d be very interested in thinking about what other general strategies could exist—they seems like great targets for world optimization.
Definitely sometimes true, but there are also many areas where the agent doing the coordination is the one extracting all the profit (like most marketplaces). Related: Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement
It’s rare that commercial businesses and market extract anywhere near all of the surplus, but it’s a good point.