I don't think it is this novel anymore though. Which easier and cheaper distribution, the same thing is starting to apply to other creative endeveours like music, art, or writing, where the costs of publishing start to get negligible, while there is an ever growing base of creatives who want to ofer their work to an audience. And maybe we should treat Open Source more like other art forms, where you get patronage, or get small payments per download like in the shareware model.

While I find speculating about different models besides capitalism a good exercise, I also don't think these things are wholy incompatible with our current societal structure.