The sharing paradox | agomezmarin

"Material sharing implies division, virtual sharing allows for multiplication. We call this the sharing paradox. Within the realm of material stuff, a simple principle applies: if I give you a piece of my apple, I end up with less. However, when we deal with virtual things, the governing rules seem unintuitive: if I give you a piece of my data, I do not lose anything. The law of conservation of mass and energy can be violated even further: if I share it all, each of us will have more in the end. In analogy with the second law of thermodynamics, we could say that the sharing entropy of an open system never decreases. While we know how to deal with physical objects, we are relatively naive when handling information. In other words, apple bites are not data bytes...."