The internet of things has facilitated an economic shift from markets to collaborative commons, with costs close to zero
Karl Marx spent a lifetime trying to uncover what he suspected were the deep contradictions that drove the capitalist system forward but that would one day lead to its demise. Although his search revealed a number of important ancillary contradictions, his focus on the relationship between the means of production, surplus value and alienated labour kept him from unmasking an even deeper paradox at the heart of the system.
In a capitalist market, governed by the invisible hand of supply and demand, sellers are constantly searching for new technologies to increase productivity, allowing them to reduce the costs of producing their goods and services so they can sell them cheaper than their competitors, win over consumers and secure sufficient profit for their investors. Marx never asked what might happen if intense global competition some time in the future forced entrepreneurs to introduce ever more efficient technologies, accelerating productivity to the point where the marginal cost of production approached zero, making goods and services "priceless" and potentially free, putting an end to profit and rendering the market exchange economy obsolete. But that’s now beginning to happen.