Ideas may be worth something, but how would the market for them work?
I realize there isn't a very efficient market for ideas, and I have difficulty understanding why. I suppose other market participants are just not like me in being interested to buy them, but I suspect a reasonable number of similar people exist. My 6-second guess about the situation is that the market for ideas is inefficient because the small percentage of people willing to buy ideas is difficult to market to and ideas are not equally useful to each person.
I have once upset an acquaintance because he felt that I stole his idea. After that incident, I have actually started to ask people not to tell me their ideas unless they are cool with me possibly using them some day. Otherwise, I just risk making enemies with very little upside.
Also, enough information can be given in advance that I'd be able to filter out ideas that I'm not interested in pursuing. General industry it's in, whether or not it's legal, etc.
I have plenty of information/ideas that would be valuable to software engineers, so I know that there exist scenarios in which information/ideas are valuable. I would've benefitted from the same information/ideas a few years back, and I suspect there's more ideas I don't have yet that would provide more gains. However, as I mentioned in another post, not many people willing to pay for information/ideas so I've had difficulty finding buyers.
This includes various classes of challenge, including the Ideation Challenge:
"An InnoCentive Ideation™ Challenge is a broad question formulated to obtain access to new ideas, similar to a global brainstorm for producing a breakthrough idea or market survey which may include ideas for a new product line, a new commercial application for a current product, or even a viral marketing idea to recruit new customers. Ideation™ Challenge submissions are typically about two written pages, and Seekers receive a non-exclusive, perpetual license to use all submissions."
I don't understand why this is getting downvoted (not that it matters much). I'm totally serious. Ask a question if something isn't clear.
