Stefan Merten wrote a harsh critique of the Peer-Economy Model Christian has developed. Due to the text being very long, I only re-post the headlines giving a good overview of the direction of the critique. I find it very useful, that Stefan explained his critique in this long text, although I did not share his views. I hope, that I will find the time to discover the shortcuts of the critique. But maybe others will do this too.
The headlines:
Vor einiger Zeit führten wir hier eine interessante Diskussion über offene Fragen der Peer-Economy. Dabei ist ein Punkt noch nicht zur Sprache gekommen, der mir damals als nicht so wichtig erschien, den ich aber inzwischen als ein zentrales Problem betrachte.
[Es gibt eine deutsche Übersetzung dieses Artikels.]
Previous part: Traits of Peer Production.
The first characteristic of peer production is that the effort required to reach the goals of a project is shared among those who care enough to contribute. How this sharing is organized depends on the kind of project.
Projects creating free software or open knowledge use a style which Francis Heylighen [2007] describes as „stigmergic“ (hint-based). The work done in such projects leaves „stimuli“ or hints motivating others to continue. Examples of such hints are to-do lists, bug reports, and feature requests in free software projects; or „red links“ to missing articles and listings of „most wanted articles“ in the Wikipedia. They point participants and potential participants to the tasks that are worth doing.
This hinting system also serves as an informal mechanism for prioritizing tasks: the more people care for a task, the more likely it is to be picked up by somebody (since the corresponding hints tend to become more visible and explicit, and since people are more likely to pick up a task they wish to be done). And since everybody is free in choosing the tasks they want to do, participants will generally be more motivated than in a market-based system, where they have to follow the orders of their boss or customer. They also tend to pick up those tasks they think they are good at, ensuring that the different talents and skills of people are applied in the best possible way.