Lau on Nostr: Economy is the free exchange of value. This is a natural phenomenon, but for too long ...

Economy is the free exchange of value. This is a natural phenomenon, but for too long it has been considered a man-made phenomenon. It is only the monetization of the exchange that we’ve called economy of the past 170 or so years, but I would rather speak of the exchange of information, monetizable or not, as economy. The term itself has been around since Ancient Greece, but the current definition that I'm contesting isn't that old.

All information has value, some of it is practically worthless, but all information weighs in on the scale. Not all information is monetizable. Whether your low tire pressure will kill you next time you drive your car is valuable, but how many leaves are growing on a bush may not be so valuable. Knowing how to estimate the amount of leaves is perhaps valuable for a crop grower. The value of information is relative and subjective, it can change for a person or a group when conditions change. Economy in a broader sense is the exchange of information, we select what is valuable to us. Some of it is free, some of it is monetizable. The monetization itself is an exchange of information, a ledger (that which we call currency) is a record that records the exchange of numbers in the record. Whether that ledger deals in absolute numbers or a flexible amount doesn’t matter, it is the information of who owns how much of it, a ledger can keep track of the amount and frequency of transactions. Bitcoin is just this, but with an absolute pool of liquidity. Bitcoin differs in many ways from other currencies, it may even be called money as well. None of the characters of Bitcoin matter for the existence of the condition that leads to the emergence of economical expression of behavior, which is the exchange of information. Bitcoin just makes it fair, based on access to the network, limited supply, lack of centralized control and uncensorable nature of transactions.

Examples of monetizable information that are evident but not straightforward: your heart rate is measurable and the device for it is sold, your data is harvested online and sold, the unknown is being researched and funds flow into the creation of discovery, sensors in your car measure the road for your safety and those devices were included in the price of your car, statistical information is gathered worldwide and being turned into spreadsheets which are used to compete for efficiency and profit, efficiency itself is information and lucrative for anyone who understands it.