>>18 That's interesting but I would say that at the very least making more copies of data encourages the production of the physical infrastructure needed to host data because it increases the demand for computing equipment/power. For example, if you torrent anime you might end up needing to buy an external hard drive thus encouraging the external drive industry to build more, furthermore the electricity consumed to make copies will also encourage for the increased production of electricity. So in this sense the consumption incentivises more production. Also very often even if you may not spend a dime yourself, your consumption itself encourages more production by giving attention to the product (and thus creating more demand). For instance, you might buy or encourage someone else to buy physical merch related to the digital media you consume by disseminating digital copies or you might simply encourage more production when the creator sees all the attention/discussion that his freely disseminated art is getting thanks to all the talk created by the mass dissemination of his art. For example, take how an illustrator who sees that his art is popular might be incentivised to create/produce more art simply because of the attention that his freely disseminated copies of his art is getting rather than because of a monetary motive. This is an example of consumption leading to more production even if access is free. Also someone just might commission them or even another artist to make more similar artworks. In either case leading to more production. I think the point is that even if access limitations are reduced/removed.
That's interesting but I would say that at the very least making more copies of data encourages the production of the physical infrastructure needed to host data because it increases the demand for computing equipment/power. For example, if you torrent anime you might end up needing to buy an external hard drive thus encouraging the external drive industry to build more, furthermore the electricity consumed to make copies will also encourage for the increased production of electricity. So in this sense the consumption incentivises more production. Also very often even if you may not spend a dime yourself, your consumption itself encourages more production by giving attention to the product (and thus creating more demand). For instance, you might buy or encourage someone else to buy physical merch related to the digital media you consume by disseminating digital copies or you might simply encourage more production when the creator sees all the attention/discussion that his freely disseminated art is getting thanks to all the talk created by the mass dissemination of his art. For example, take how an illustrator who sees that his art is popular might be incentivised to create/produce more art simply because of the attention that his freely disseminated copies of his art is getting rather than because of a monetary motive. This is an example of consumption leading to more production even if access is free. Also someone just might commission them or even another artist to make more similar artworks. In either case leading to more production. I think the point is that even if access limitations are reduced/removed.