Even though it makes sense, I think the biggest problem with this solution is preventing people from taking up low paying cash jobs. The US doesn't have an effective way to enforce that yet.
Given that this discussion is about US immigration, it makes sense to discuss cases where capital needs to be raised(if comparing to OECD countries) or there is a significant advantage to relocating to US(if comparing to non-OECD countries).
One of the main premises is that innovation is stifled because employees in the position to innovate are chained to their jobs via the H1 visa in their prime years.
The problem with the current system isn't that people act selfishly i.e. in a way that creates most value for themselves.
The problem is that the selfish actions of some actors(the figurative 1%) count for overwhelmingly more than others. And a lot of actors don't have any say at all(those below the poverty line). In such a system, the selfish 'demands' of most other actors don't matter.
Say on HN, there were a few people (type A) that could instantly give 1,000,000 points to any comment or post and everybody else could give only 1(type B). A post could provide value for 100,000 type Bs and yet some other post that type A liked would always rise to the top. If this were true, HN would be a very boring place to be.
The goal should be to empower all actors to act selfishly - perhaps not equally, but atleast in a 'reasonably' proportionate fashion.
This holds for rare, luxury goods and limited markets (like housing). But the concentration of wealth in a minority AFAIK doesn't seem to bid up large markets like corn or paper.
Consider the example given by creamyhorror below - the influence of money in the political process.
What if besides having a disproportionately high number of points on HN, you had the power to influence the creators of HN so that a percentage of all the points on HN went to you? Or, what if you had millions of points on HN and were able to convince the makers of HN that you should be able to vote on HN with only 0.5 points per vote?
You nailed it. The key problem is 'demand' is determined only by whoever has money. Capitalism works because each person gets a say in what is important and creates value for them. The problem is that if you don't have above a certain amount of money, you don't get much of a say. In the age of immense income inequality, this completely distorts the 'demand' generation aspect of capitalism.
What if we divorced 'demand'(what creates value for each person) from money (payment for value created) and gave all actors an equal right to determine demand irrespective of their ability to pay? We are working on building such a world.
> What if we divorced 'demand'(what creates value for each person) from money (payment for value created) and gave all actors an equal right to determine demand irrespective of their ability to pay?
Demand is already divorced from ability to pay - anyone can "demand" anything. The "problem" is that suppliers don't care about demand. They only care about being paid.
If a million people demand X but are unwilling to pay for it while 10 people demand Y and are willing to pay for it, why am I going to produce X instead of Y?
Divorcing ability to pay doesn't necessarily have to mean nobody pays.
We are already beginning to see the early stages of such a system. All freemium services are in essence an example of such a system and therefore by extension most startups.
Gmail satisfies the demand of millions of customers for an email service but doesn't ask them to pay. This doesn't mean gmail doesn't make gains.
Currently, the primary funder of such services are ad and brand agencies.
What if we lived in a world where any individual could basically play the role that ad/brand agencies play in supporting freemium services today?
You are right. I was describing free - not freemium. Though, technically even freemium is an example of where a large number of people don't pay in the direct exchange. The monetization model divorces payment from the direct beneficiary - that's the key takeaway.
> The monetization model divorces payment from the direct beneficiary - that's the key takeaway.
No. Freemium divorces payment from SOME direct beneficiaries.
However, the total cost, and then some, is paid by other direct beneficiaries. Is your scheme any different?
Note that freemium doesn't always work. For example, a freemium automobile company is unlikely to work. Advertising supported "free to end user" automobiles won't work either.
So, how does your proposed model work? Be sure to explain when it works and when it doesn't. (If you claim that it works for every product/service, you're wrong.)
We have this 'equal right' in the form of one-man-one-vote (democracy), but that doesn't stop the richest actors from exercising great influence over the results overall. In the end, the ability of wealth to buy marketing and power will always exist.
I would like to see inequality reduced, but it seems like the 'right to create equal demand' has been provided already. There's always more work to be done, I guess.
Certification is a form of social proof, and a shortcut to find people who might be qualified in some industries.
They are worth it if your 'customer' (employer, actual customer, other) cares. But, thinking about acquiring social proof rather than certifications leads to a more interesting set of ideas.
For eg., you can acquire Salesforce certification for their platform or you can build a Salesforce app that customers use and rate highly. In turn, you would use the app to generate revenue or give it away for free so you can get multi million consulting contracts(slight exaggeration).
If you are looking to be cool with the tech crowd, no they are never worth it. If you want to provide a service to customers, social proof matters.
Credit and recommendation are fundamental to any human endeavor - whether applied to Ph.D candidates, poverty and access to capital, patents, or a plethora of other complex societal issues. If nothing else, I always find it interesting to learn how different sections of the society deal with these issues.
Even if they can't do it right away, they should communicate a plan for how they are going to tackle this recurring issue. That's the whole point behind status.heroku.com / trust.salesforce.com. They are part of a publicly traded corporation with a lot of resources.
Extremely nerve wracking for new startups like ours.
Also,
1) potential to eventually sell MS products to yammer's customers.
2) being able to win other enterprise deals in competition with Salesforce/Oracle by being able to claim that you have something similar to Chatter.
