Public Goods Technology

Public goods technology refers to software, protocols, standards and data that anyone can use and that do not wear out when more people use them, which matches the economist's definition of public goods as non-rival and hard to exclude people from. Examples include open-source libraries, internet protocols, blockchain client software and freely published research. Because such work cannot easily be sold, it tends to be underfunded: everyone benefits, but few pay. The crypto industry has experimented with ways to fix this, including developer grants from foundations, donation matching rounds, retroactive funding that rewards projects after they prove useful, and treasuries run by a DAO. The phrase is closely tied to the regenerative finance movement, which applies similar funding ideas to social and environmental goals.