@ramsey No; rather that we should acknowledge that open-source development isn't the first to have this sort of situation, and hasn't created a unique circumstance.

There's a bit of a recurring problem where folks in tech communities rediscover social dynamics that many people outside tech have already dealt with for a long time (see eg. the "you reinvented the bus" memes), and then present them as some sort of novel revelation, without ever acknowledging the work that folks outside of tech have put into it in years prior.

This sort of exceptionalism also tends to creep into narratives about technology as a positive force; the discussion around UBI and open-source, but also for example the notion that "having computers means we no longer need to labour" (which isn't really any more true than it was after the invention of industrial machines).

That exceptionalism has a tendency of not just ignoring the lessons from history (like how there have always been good reasons for UBI, and plenty of data to support it, and it was buried for political reasons instead), but also of creating a further divide between "tech people" and "non-tech people"; where the progressive systems that take advantage of these 'novel' insights only really cater for the tech folks.

For UBI, this has already sort of been happening with some privately-run collective UBI-like schemes where only folks in tech are eligible. Sometimes to the detriment of solidarity and collective action towards introducing a true UBI for *everyone*, because tech folks then end up pulling up the ladder behind them.

So all I'm saying here, basically, is: yes, open-source development *is* a good argument for UBI, but it is not an exceptional one - and we should not treat it as such, lest we end up with a watered-down system that only really benefits the relatively-powerful few in tech.

Instead, we should see open-source development as just one of many forms of community work, all of which *as a category* are a very good reason for UBI, and should be presented *as a category* for the purpose of solidarity.