Nice questions. if we had &#x27;teams&#x27; of programmers and each team competes for new members, that is where &#x27;the baseball like draft&#x27; analogy from. The programmers would be earning an income from their team so I am not about turning developers into contract workers. Just to clarify a team could be a co-op( or whatever structure).<p>Making more money doesn&#x27;t have to come from wage inflation. it can be derived from cost saving. Just like if you are a member of  housing co-op, you still pay rent but the benefits you derive are incomparable if you just paid directly to a landlord.<p>For a capitalistic business, the two options are either pay a fixed monthly wage and keep most of the profit or have no upfront wage costs and share your profits(royalties).It all comes down to preferences and what position each party wants&#x2F;can negotiate.<p>It is not perfection I seek but less options that I seek to avoid. About Egos that where the &quot;xprize&#x27; esque comes in, business pay for explicit specific outcomes(think of it as a service level agreement).