Measuring What Matters
An Open Letter to Erik Brynjolfsson
Dear Professor Brynjolfsson,
You’ve spent your career measuring the digital economy — and showing that our traditional metrics miss most of the value. GDP doesn’t capture what platforms create or extract. Productivity measures don’t account for the intangible shifts in who benefits from technological change.
I’ve built a platform designed around a different measurement: How much of the value goes to the people who created it?
The Measurement Problem You’ve Identified
At the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, you’ve documented the gap between what digital platforms produce and what our economic measures capture. You’ve shown that the benefits of technology are unevenly distributed — that productivity gains don’t automatically translate to shared prosperity.
Your work on “Machine, Platform, Crowd” examined how platforms reshape economic relationships. The conclusion I drew: platforms are infrastructure, and infrastructure shapes who wins.
So I asked: What if the infrastructure were designed differently from the start?
A Different Design
Liana Banyan is a platform cooperative with transparent, fixed economics:
The margin is Cost + 20%. Not “whatever the market will bear” or “what we can extract before users leave.” A fixed, published cost-plus margin that lets everyone see exactly where value flows.
Ownership is distributed. Every participant earns blockchain-verified equity through contribution. Not stock options that might vest someday — immediate ownership stakes that pay dividends and grant governance rights.
The economics are auditable. Every transaction, every split, every fee — recorded on-chain and independently verifiable. Not “trust us” — “verify it.”
On a $500 music license, the artist keeps $415+. On a product sale, the creator keeps the same proportion. The platform takes only what it needs to operate.
Why Stanford?
You’ve built the Digital Economy Lab to measure what traditional economics misses. You’ve argued for new metrics that capture actual welfare gains from technology.
I’m proposing a platform where the metrics are built in. Where “how much value went to creators” isn’t something you have to estimate — it’s published in real-time.
What I’m asking:
- Does this model measure what matters? Or am I missing economic dynamics that would undermine the design?
- What would rigorous analysis reveal? If Stanford studied this, what would you want to test?
- Is this worth academic attention? If the economics hold up, would the Digital Economy Lab or SIEPR consider examining it?
The Proposition
You’ve called for data that serves communities rather than just corporations. You’ve argued that we need new models for how platforms create and distribute value.
I’ve built one. I’d like to know if it survives scrutiny from the people who understand these systems best.
Jonathan Jones Founding Manager, Liana Banyan Corporation November 2025
Full economics at Cephas.LianaBanyan.org 53 patent filings documenting the technical architecture
406-578-1232 Support@LianaBanyan.org