This is an interesting idea and I appreciate how you’ve sketched out which kinds of organizations it applies to. I think I agree with your major point: certain services that EAs can buy on the free market will be more efficiently provided by, well, the free market. Such services might include things like: therapy for depression or anxiety; general advertising services; video editing services; immigration law services.
Could you please clarify why: The service provider evaluates applications (like a grantmaker does), means the product should be free? I would assume most of the free services you’re criticizing do indeed evaluate their potential clients before accepting them? Related, I’m assuming The cost-effectiveness of the service is evaluated (e.g. by funders) in order to keep it running, is also true for many of the free services you’re criticizing, but I don’t think it means these services should be free.
I’m not sure about “products you cannot buy on the free market.” It seems possible that those more often have some of the other qualities I listed, though: they might be undervalued by the market for some reason (so they’re probably cheaper, meaning that overhead would be higher if you tried earning a profit and donating it), or they’re highly specialized to EA somehow, which would mean that looking for non-EA providers and customers isn’t as viable. If those don’t hold (and neither do other factors), I’m not sure why they make more sense as free services.
On your specific example — EA value-aligned career coaching — I think the more relevant point for me is that the benefits of this “service” are not entirely going through straightforward “benefits” to its customers, since part of the point is to make the “customers” more impartially altruistic. This is what I was trying to cover in List item 3 here. I think you also describe this in the paragraph that starts with “there are other reasons...”
Re: “why: The service provider evaluates applications (like a grantmaker does), means the product should be free?”
Quick clarification: In the section on exceptions, I’m not trying to actively argue that any particular kinds of service should in fact be free (for EA projects). Given that I argue that this is often not an optimal approach, I just wanted to point out that there are types of services for which I think it’s more likely to be effective. And these are something like partial signals; if several of the list items apply, I’m less skeptical that offering the service for free is optimal. If none seem to apply, I’m pretty unsure. (I’ll try to clarify this after I post this comment.)
Setting that aside: I do think that if you’re offering a free service for EA projects (or for “EAs”), you could end up in a situation where you’re mostly just going off of whether the person running the project seems to be ~in the community. (I think this happens sometimes, but I’m not sure.) I think that the effectiveness of work in EA varies quite a bit, so I do think that offering services for projects that are filtered for impact makes more sense.
Relatedly, re: “I’m assuming The cost-effectiveness of the service is evaluated (e.g. by funders) in order to keep it running, is also true for many of the free services you’re criticizing, but I don’t think it means these services should be free.”
This is another factor that makes me less skeptical that a free service is cost-effective (although it’s not a slam-dunk for me), vs. a service that’s being run based on the providers’ own assessment that it seems useful or related situations.
This is an interesting idea and I appreciate how you’ve sketched out which kinds of organizations it applies to. I think I agree with your major point: certain services that EAs can buy on the free market will be more efficiently provided by, well, the free market. Such services might include things like: therapy for depression or anxiety; general advertising services; video editing services; immigration law services.
Could you please clarify why: The service provider evaluates applications (like a grantmaker does), means the product should be free? I would assume most of the free services you’re criticizing do indeed evaluate their potential clients before accepting them? Related, I’m assuming The cost-effectiveness of the service is evaluated (e.g. by funders) in order to keep it running, is also true for many of the free services you’re criticizing, but I don’t think it means these services should be free.
Thanks for the comment!
I’m not sure about “products you cannot buy on the free market.” It seems possible that those more often have some of the other qualities I listed, though: they might be undervalued by the market for some reason (so they’re probably cheaper, meaning that overhead would be higher if you tried earning a profit and donating it), or they’re highly specialized to EA somehow, which would mean that looking for non-EA providers and customers isn’t as viable. If those don’t hold (and neither do other factors), I’m not sure why they make more sense as free services.
On your specific example — EA value-aligned career coaching — I think the more relevant point for me is that the benefits of this “service” are not entirely going through straightforward “benefits” to its customers, since part of the point is to make the “customers” more impartially altruistic. This is what I was trying to cover in List item 3 here. I think you also describe this in the paragraph that starts with “there are other reasons...”
Re: “why: The service provider evaluates applications (like a grantmaker does), means the product should be free?”
Quick clarification: In the section on exceptions, I’m not trying to actively argue that any particular kinds of service should in fact be free (for EA projects). Given that I argue that this is often not an optimal approach, I just wanted to point out that there are types of services for which I think it’s more likely to be effective. And these are something like partial signals; if several of the list items apply, I’m less skeptical that offering the service for free is optimal. If none seem to apply, I’m pretty unsure. (I’ll try to clarify this after I post this comment.)
Setting that aside: I do think that if you’re offering a free service for EA projects (or for “EAs”), you could end up in a situation where you’re mostly just going off of whether the person running the project seems to be ~in the community. (I think this happens sometimes, but I’m not sure.) I think that the effectiveness of work in EA varies quite a bit, so I do think that offering services for projects that are filtered for impact makes more sense.
Relatedly, re: “I’m assuming The cost-effectiveness of the service is evaluated (e.g. by funders) in order to keep it running, is also true for many of the free services you’re criticizing, but I don’t think it means these services should be free.”
This is another factor that makes me less skeptical that a free service is cost-effective (although it’s not a slam-dunk for me), vs. a service that’s being run based on the providers’ own assessment that it seems useful or related situations.