I tried to take the pledge...(Honest, I did, Steve!)
I'd like to give the generic problem a high falutin' name, so I dub it "The Poverty of Abundance", because of the terms "The Economics of Scarcity" vs "The Economics Of Abundance". (Remember, you heard it here first
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It's an economic paradox. When things are so abundant that nobody charges for it, it stops being produced, due to no economic incentive to produce it. Historically, this would lead to eventual shortages, which would raise the price and restore production. These, at least, were the economic reality under "The Economics Of Scarcity". (See the "Problems of the Commons" in an economics textbook.)
"The Economics Of Abundance" has kicked this into a cocked hat. When the cost of producing things hits zero, and the ability to produce is widely distributed (and also approached zero), there's nothing to cause a shortage of product to raise the price. This may sound like Nirvana to some but.....
What do you produce??? Creating a new item to produce is [B]
not[B] free. And there is nothing in "The Economics Of Abundance" world that pays for the new designs. In "The Economics Of Scarcity", design and production were rolled into one, and used the overall scarcity to create a price for both.
Under the "Economics Of Abundance" the cost are completely separate, with no way to charge back the design, thus impoverishing the product designers. (Hence my term, "The Poverty Of Abundance".)
Currently, this is limited to the world of 1's and 0's. The rest of the world still follows the "Economics Of Scarcity" (price of gas, anybody?). But 3-D printers exist (poor quality, expensive, small). Who knows how it will go over the next 50 yrs? This problem is a BIG problem, and we're just looking at the tip of the iceberg in e-books, music and video.
Please note, I don't claim to have the answer. But it's impossible to solve a problem without fully defining it.