And you're blatantly avoiding my followup. Are you indignant, or have I made the trap too obvious?

But let's have it your way, and let's work through your argument.

You introduce two clauses in a sentence that's an appeal to Ethos: "I support the Good Intentions Motive. I mentioned charity several times in an earlier conversation as a way to reduce the gaps left by the Profit Motive. The two motives can work together." Efficient, strong start.

But if "the goal isn't profit" is it true that "everyone can benefit" under Good Intentions alone?

Ah, a classic. Because implication A=>B doesn't work only when Truth implies False, you may even pretend at grace by assuming B ("everyone can benefit") to be true! Unfortunately, you follow with sarcastic "I noticed the problem" by pointing to what's explicitly called a problem in the article.

Under Good Intentions, success is a problem.

It's only true when 'problem' means "not everyone can benefit." This deal a blow to my strong thesis, but doesn't work for less restrictive qualifier. You can still benefit some, but you're silently equating those two positions as bad.

There are costs to make and distribute dyes, and increasing success means increasing costs, without any corresponding increase in the resources used to make and distribute dyes.

I addressed it more than sufficiently, but let's state it explicitly: the material cost is negligible, and this becomes more true as you scale up production, but it's the know-how distribution that is the bottleneck. You claimed it doesn't invalidate your argument, which you apparently didn't think worthwhile to support.

Under the Profit Motive, a firm will face growing pains as business scales up, but this is the most desirable sign of success. Every additional order brings revenue which supports satisfying more orders.

True only until the intersection of supply-demand curves, adjusted for expenses, under assumption you have no direct competition.

The goal of reaching every potential customer is so important that a promotion in which only 1% of the audience responds is worthwhile.

Why? You might as well just say that this tiny lab HAS TO grow into the world-wide brand that produces so much dye it's rebranded as food additive just to offload the thing, but I suppose it'd be too on the nose.

The goal of getting dyes to everyone who can use them is supported by spending money on advertising.

A simple search for "fluorescent dye" online produces a number of invitations to acquire dye via the Profit Motive, some from firms that have made great efforts to establish a reputation for reliability and convenience. I had 300 μg of PA Janelia Fluor® 549, SE in my shopping cart in minutes.

So if the goal has to be profit, it already doesn't need advertising, just URL redirect. Cool!

It's not easy to find the Good Intentions site. If you can find it, you have to register before you can request a product. After I registered, a senior scientist contacted me to ask if I am affiliated with an organization (information "important for us to meet our legal obligations"). I confessed I was just snooping around and didn't need any dye.

That's pretty typical.

It's great that Janelia is performing this service to whatever extent their budget allows. Probably they enable some work to be done that would not have happened because of financial limitations. Probably there is also some waste when people use free Janelia dyes on projects that might not have seemed worthwhile at $138 per 300 μg.

Dealt with this one already.

I think the challenge is in scaling, so everyone can benefit.

This I agree on, I'd even re-concede 'most/many' instead everyone, but your arrival at that conclusion is spotty and disputable. You skipped around values of A=>B, but didn't connect the thing.

Also, you're treating research institutions like a business whereas it's not their role. I don't think you're obtuse, so explain to me why this substitution works without detriment to their purpose.

The Use of Knowledge in Society explains how the price mechanism promotes coordination among different people without requiring planning or oversight.

His entire reasoning follows from the prefect knowledge of the system, rules, and its actors. Pretty par for the course in economics, which I for one have the sense to admit as not my forte, but I'll deal with his purply prose when I'm not busy.