Caveat to Open Source Disruption

I believe an important caveat exists to this postulate: the physical capital necessary for the production & innovation of the resource should have low-cost access & wide distribution. I will try & explore this caveat a bit. https://t.co/p57V70PiCr

— Sujith Jay Nair (@suj1th) October 20, 2018

I will use the case of the Pharmaceutical industry. Modern drug discovery is a patent-heavy process, which should make it a ripe candidate for open source disruption. But this has not been the case, yet.

— Sujith Jay Nair (@suj1th) October 20, 2018

My argument for why this is so is the concentrated nature of the physical asset (lab infrastructure, capital for clinical trials) needed for innovation in drug discovery - it is limited to large pharmaceutical firms and some university departments.

— Sujith Jay Nair (@suj1th) October 20, 2018

The concentrated nature of the physical asset ensures the opportunity cost of losing out on innovation that could have been garnered by the resource as a commons, is very low. This, in turn, reduces the effective implementation cost of property for the resource. Hence, patents!

— Sujith Jay Nair (@suj1th) October 20, 2018