OSE Value Proposition
Hint: Page needs updating as of 1/2017
Note: the following defines desirable end-states of each Value Offering.
General OSE Value Proposition
(note: general value proposition was penned in 2012 and needs to be updated for nonpoliticized speech)
Our work is designed to address the following social opportunities:
The way society innovates - We are interested in developing open innovation as the standard by which society engages in its creativity on the economic playing field. By developing an open source product development pipeline, the Distributive Enterprise Platform - we aim to provide a platform that can increase the rate of innovation way beyond the limits of proprietary research and development. The copyright system limits people’s ability to improve upon or even use vital human innovation to solve serious human problems such as hunger and disease.
Planned obsolescence - products are designed to have limited lifespans in order to improve profit margins for companies by creating conditions where people have to continue to spend money. Entire product service industries develop around this issue to profit off of people’s dependency.
Chronic unemployment and poverty - the United States has lost over 29% of its manufacturing sector jobs since its peak in 1978 due to the globalization of the labor market. Some developing nations have seen an increased ability to attract investments that lead to job creation, but we need to ask ourselves if these are the kinds of jobs we want for ourselves. Aside from a life of poverty or working for unaccountable institutions, the third option, the route of the entrepreneur, has been prohibitively expensive, and the risks are very high.
Enterprise development barriers are unnecessarily high - the cost of acquisition for industrial capital is prohibitively expensive. When businesses depend on capital for survival, and it breaks down, service costs can drive companies out of business.
Climate change and the destruction of natural ecosystems - the global system has taken risks to improve profitability and to concentrate power, and now the infrastructure that supports billions of lives is unacceptably instable due to a lack of political will in the face of climate change and the accelerated destruction of natural ecosystems. We need to rapidly deploy decentralized systems of agriculture, manufacturing, and clean energy production in order to reduce carbon emissions and develop social infrastructure that is resilient in the face of change and uncertainty.
The GVCS products are cost-driven. This is true especially because of the modular nature of the entire GVCS - where standard components and modules interchange. This is favorable for a unit of economic organization (such as a large enterprise, a municipal infrastructure department, or a new community) - where maintenance costs of a large equipment base are otherwise high or prohibitive.
For the entrepreneur or maker, our materials costs are typically 5-10 times cheaper than the cost of turnkey, industrial products. This gap allows for a robust, cost-driven business model for the flexible fabricator market or maker. This is under the assumption of access to low-cost fabrication machinery and knowhow - to allow for effective production. These low cost tools of production are part of the GVCS.
