Interview (mp3, 28:00, 26.5MB, June 2007)
"It's really a question of design," explains Michel Bauwens, when asked about the concept of P2P. "How do you design projects so the individual interest coincides with the collective interest?" An early Belgian Internet pioneer, Michel Bauwens founded two dot com companies and was a former e-Business strategy manager at the telecommunications giant Belgacom before leaving the corporate world to create the Foundation for P2P Alternatives.
Bauwens believes that the underlying technological structure of our society is really designed as a P2P network. Digital technology has enabled the global coordination of small projects cheaply. We can now apply the rules of small groups to projects on a massive scale. Namahn wonders whether P2P could become the dominant mode of operation in the immaterial world, where intellectual goods are being exchanged.
Bauwens asserts that two factors make this likely: the sustainability of P2P projects—the many P2P volunteers can be easily replaced—and diffused innovation. The market is increasingly dependent on innovation, but it's no longer the exclusive property of the corporation. Users are adding, changing and innovating, and the factories are producing what users have conceived. Instead of deciding how things should be in advance, P2P involves learning from each other and disseminating the things that work. It's a better process for dealing with complexity. In this new model afforded by the digital space there are no scarce resources. "What you have," Bauwens says, "is the network effect—the more you use it the more information you have and the more value it has."