The title is cribbed from the title of a blog by economist Alex Tabbarok at Marginal Revolution, which notes: "Price controls or other such plans such as reimportation may bring cheaper pharmaceuticals for a short period but we will then have a much smaller supply of new drugs forever. Only the shortsighted would buy that prescription."

Read the whole thing here.

And, of course, the lesson is generalizable. It applies to creative products of all kinds. The assumption that the current stock should be distributed for free (as in P2P) ensures "a much smaller supply of [fill in the blank] forever." Stories of grasshoppers and ants come to mind.

posted by James DeLong @ 10:36 AM | General

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