I am not sure what you mean by "this novel". It is a fundamental difference between all digital products (software, music, etc) and all other physical (non-digital rather) products. It doesn't have to be a novel difference to be important. This distinction in itself is enough to produce the effects we see on the economy. I mentioned the ever changing pricing strategy of such products as an example.
> I also don't think these things are wholy incompatible with our current societal structure.
Wholy incompatible? By no means, this industry is making tons of money. Surely it is compatible.
I think of it more like a handbreak. Yhe current capitalist societal structure is putting a hard limit to our potential as a society to fully leverege these technologies to better our lives. Open source is just a glimpse of what can be accomplished when money doesn't get in the way of our work exchange. And imagine what our humanity could have achieved if 1000x people did open source without having money issues.
