Except Apple
is a bunch of creative people. So is Kurzweil and O'Reilly and, heck, even Starbucks.
Markets are not pay-what-you-want, because pay-what-you-want implies $0 is an acceptable price. At least that's how I was using the term. Apple will not accept $0 for an iPad. If you don't accept their price, you don't get the iPad. That's why people buy it.
Copying media lets you get it even if you don't accept the price. Which means the only reason to pay is because you want to.
My contention is that making people pay in order to enjoy a product is often what provides the money necessary to exercise creativity. The iPad could be improved by an individual working alone with their own funds, but it never could have been created that way. Without profits from previous products, the creative people at Apple who designed the iPad never would have had the resources to do so. We have iPads today precisely because Apple is closed.
What is the next innovation in personal computing? Who will come up with it? Will it be Apple or someone on Kickstarter? My money is on Apple. Even if it is someone on Kickstarter, will they be able to raise the probably millions of dollars necessary to make a viable consumer product? Unlikely.
A system in which producers pay upfront and then recoup costs is actually better for consumers. You get to see the finished product before deciding whether or not to spend your money. If the finished product sucks, only the producer loses. If the finished product of a Kickstarter project sucks, everyone who contributed loses.
How many iterations do you think it took Apple to perfect the iPad? Each of those would have to have been separately funded on Kickstarter for that system to produce the iPad. I doubt even the costs of one iteration could be raised.
But when you cut off the ability to recoup production costs, you cut off the incentive to pay upfront production costs. Which cuts off the funding to creative people who are doing important work.
The problem with only being able to collect voluntary payments (pay-what-you-want, Kickstarter, etc.) is that people don't necessary know they want something until it's done. The 1st iteration iPad probably sucked. So why would people fund it? If Apple builds an iPad, it only takes a few people's shared vision to make it happen. If a Kickstarter project wants to build something as innovative, it will required the shared vision of everyone contributing. You'll have to convince thousands of people that it's worth funding numerous iterations at thousands, or possibly even millions, of dollars, in the hopes that the final product will be good. I just don't see this happening.