This repository is currently under active construction.
Structure, documents, and explanations may continue to evolve as the framework is refined.
It is recommended to view the project via the latest Pages build or latest documentation guide.
This project provides both Chinese and English versions:
- The Chinese version is the primary version
- The English version is a translated version
Due to ongoing updates, differences may exist between the two versions. In case of discrepancies, please refer to the Chinese version as the authoritative source.
This project provides an analytical framework centered on Technology Fee, aimed at understanding technological value within price structures in the technological era.
In the modern economy, the pricing of goods and services is increasingly:
- No longer primarily determined by physical production costs
- But instead driven by software systems, engineering structures, and technological capabilities
Therefore, a key question arises:
How can the technological value embedded in prices be identified?
This project attempts to provide an analytical perspective to:
- Identify existing Technology Fees embedded in price structures
- Understand the role of technology in the modern economy
- Analyze differences in Technology Fee structures across industries
- Discuss how technological value is expressed within broader structures
It should be emphasized:
Technology Fee is not an additional component of price, but an identification of already existing technological value.
The core of this project is:
Identifying technological value that already exists in price structures but has not been explicitly expressed.
It should be clarified:
- This project is an analytical framework, not an institutional or policy design
- It does not provide policy recommendations or concrete institutional proposals
- It does not attempt to fully explain how prices are formed
- Price formation mechanisms are inherently more complex; this project focuses on one key dimension
That is:
How technological value exists within price structures.
Therefore:
- This project does not construct a complete theory of price
- It does not fully decompose price structures
- It does not directly propose specific institutional solutions
Institution-related discussions in the documentation:
Should be understood as extensions based on this framework, not predefined designs.
Technology Fee refers to:
The portion of a price structure that reflects the value of technological systems and technological innovation.
Further clarification:
- Technology Fee is not a new economic variable
- It is not a method of artificially decomposing prices
- It is a way to identify technological value already embedded in prices
Its manifestation varies significantly across industries:
| Industry Type | Characteristics of Technology Fee |
|---|---|
| Agriculture | Low, technology widely diffused |
| Basic Industry | Low, mature technology |
| Traditional Services | Low, labor-dependent |
| Advanced Manufacturing | Medium, engineering systems important |
| 2C Digital Services | High |
| 2B Digital Services | Very high |
This project is a study with structural analysis as its core and related discussions as extensions.
Specifically:
- Structural analysis: core content
- Related discussions: extensions based on the framework
Main objectives include:
- Building a price structure analysis framework from the perspective of Technology Fee
- Understanding how technological value manifests in the economy
- Analyzing Technology Fee structures across industries
- Providing an analytical perspective for future research
Current focus:
How Technology Fee exists within price structures and how it can be identified.
The project content is organized around the following directions:
- Background (asset inequality and living standard gaps)
- Price structure (basic goods and structural issues)
- Technology Fee framework (core section)
- Related structural issues (extensions based on the framework)
- Possible structural changes
- Technology Fee structures across industries
For the full structure, refer to the documentation index.
The project is currently in:
Open discussion + continuous revision phase
Development timeline:
- May 2025: Initial concept
- October 2025: Systematic organization
- February 2026: First public release on Zhihu
- March 2026: GitHub project established
March 30, 2026 – April 2, 2026
- Clarified Technology Fee as an “explicit expression,” not an added component
- Unified expression logic to avoid misunderstandings of “price decomposition”
April 5, 2026 – April 8, 2026
- Clarified the core as “identification of Technology Fee,” not explanation of price formation
- Added reading guidance to avoid misinterpretation as institutional design
- Strengthened the definition of Technology Fee as identification of existing technological value
- Removed predefined paths and institutional assumptions, unified as a structural analytical framework
- Adjusted structure to improve clarity between analysis and extended discussions
This project is licensed under:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Redistribution and citation are allowed
- Commercial use is prohibited
- Modification or derivative works are prohibited
For adaptation or derivative work, please contact the author via email for written authorization.
For discussion, use the GitHub Discussions feature.
See the LICENSE file for details.