> there is literally zero reason to assume that the thing worked on would be useful to society in any way whatsoever, it can be useless or even detrimental to it - the current mechanism of monetary compensation is the thing aligning the work to interests of others, remove it and you can't expect that alignment to persist.
I think a strong argument can be made that the current system does not necessarily align the work being done with the interests of others in a broad or universal sense. Think about a corporation with a very useful drug whose patent is about to expire. Allowing the drug to go generic would be in the best interests of many poor sick people all over the world (patent harmonization means even poor countries must follow US patent law or get locked out of global systems). However companies often find legal tricks they can use to effectively renew the patents for their drugs. This aligns with the interests of some people - the shareholders for example, but is detrimental to the interests of sick poor people all over the world.
And this isn’t a hypothetical, this just happened again two weeks ago with Johnson and Johnson and only a coordinated pressure campaign from some high profile YouTubers was able to get the company to relax their plans:
https://youtu.be/tMhgw5SW0h4
However when there is no profit motive, people often work on problems that they personally need to solve, and there is often good alignment with the work they are doing and the needs of others.
More broadly, we can say that the current system does not necessarily align the work being done with the needs of most people, and that alternative ways of aligning that work must be possible.
I think a strong argument can be made that the current system does not necessarily align the work being done with the interests of others in a broad or universal sense. Think about a corporation with a very useful drug whose patent is about to expire. Allowing the drug to go generic would be in the best interests of many poor sick people all over the world (patent harmonization means even poor countries must follow US patent law or get locked out of global systems). However companies often find legal tricks they can use to effectively renew the patents for their drugs. This aligns with the interests of some people - the shareholders for example, but is detrimental to the interests of sick poor people all over the world.
And this isn’t a hypothetical, this just happened again two weeks ago with Johnson and Johnson and only a coordinated pressure campaign from some high profile YouTubers was able to get the company to relax their plans: https://youtu.be/tMhgw5SW0h4
However when there is no profit motive, people often work on problems that they personally need to solve, and there is often good alignment with the work they are doing and the needs of others.
More broadly, we can say that the current system does not necessarily align the work being done with the needs of most people, and that alternative ways of aligning that work must be possible.