Digg/Reddit Content Site

Project Ideas
1

I have this idea for a reddit/digg/substack like website where users can post content (images, videos, links, articles) and other users can view this content.

That seems pretty normal capitalist spam, right?

Now imagine, every week, users indicate what content they want, other users indicate what content they will post. Then you use the participatory planning model to work out the costs.

Due to the challenge of implementing this in the world today, there would need to be ads or subscriptions or both. (The org supporting the site would be a non-profit so costs can be kept low and there could be a subsidy program of some kind)

My problem is how would parecon work as a model within a sub-market like this where there’s external capital entering the model and content is un-expiring (like a public good)?

I’ve only read the original book and the math is a bit over my head but I was hoping someone might have an interest in applying parecon in the real world and using it as a syndicate. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

2

If it is like a public good, then I suppose the model that deals with public good (as the section “Public goods” of Ch. 7 of the book suggests) can be used.

3

I guess I’m not 100% sure that it’s a public good. In my original distillation of this idea, the viewing of the content would be paid through a credit. It just doesn’t reduce in supply when one person consumes it which makes it “non-rival” perhaps?

4

Rereading that section in Democratic Economic Planning, I am thinking maybe this isn’t what is meant by “non-rival”. Instead, I believe that means paid once, enjoyed by all. Here, the good is available on the internet and the credit is paid to support the creator of the article/content but there is no reduction in supply just server costs. Maybe that’s a more traditional good after all?

5

Yes, then it sounds like a “private” good. We can treat it as other private goods in the annual participatory planning procedure then.