Chapter
11
Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
I read the Tao Te Ching many times as a
philosophy major at Yale and for years after, but I haven't read it the last ten
years. I guess I'd better read it again. "Usefulness [comes from] what is
not there" beautifully states the value of modular extensibility. What is
intriguing is the distinction between profit and usefulness.
At first pass it seems obvious that the maker of
a modular object, like a clay vessel is paid for (on thereby makes a profit
from) "what is there". On second pass, it strikes me that the user of
the vessel makes a profit from "what is not there", either by adding
it on, or by using the space to some purpose, say transporting liquid in the
vessel. So the last two lines could be recast:
Therefore profit to the maker comes from what is
there;
Profit to the user from what is not there.
Finally, the more I think about it, the more I
believe that the profit to the maker really comes from what is not there. A
potter buys a block of clay at a certain cost. Her "value add" is the
vessel shape she forms the clay into. Someone pays her more money for the clay
in the shape of a vessel than in the shape of the raw block of clay because the
buyer values the shape--what is not there. Assuming she uses the entire clay
block to make the vessel, her profit is the price of the vessel minus the price
of the clay block. Now suppose she could get the same price for a vessel made
from only half the block of clay. She has doubled her profit by halving
"what is there." So the last two lines would be more clear if they
were recast as:
Therefore profit is limited by what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
Which is another way of saying "Less is
[worth] more." Which is why intangible artifacts (aka intellectual
property) are the most profitable. There is no there there.
6:06:09 AM 
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