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Well, yeah. Without even going into the validity of their numbers, the thing is that everyone knows that. Welcome to enterprise IT, here's your sign.

The special thing here is that the hardware is as close to being completely disposable as possible, and that the training is as close to universally available as possible, and that as a result it's just possible that the poor nations of the world aren't condemned to the grim meathook future that's lying in wait for people who aren't well-educated enough and well-trained enough to be a part of the information age.

that was LAST week's "future". So, shall we take bets on next week's "future"?

I think what you're referring to is The Long Now. Here's an essay on it and the grim meathook future.

Speculation, and I assert otherwise. Find a counter example.

Yup, it's speculation. It's too early to know yet how well some of the micropayment content sellers have done yet. We'll find out in a few weeks.

Sure, that $109.30 for U2 will really persuade them to go indie, and the $10 for Linkin Park shows just how much you wacky kids will pay for your college boy rawk.

Well, first, you're confusing donation systems with micropayment systems. Micropayments aren't about charity; they're about making a transaction.

Second, we do know that as of a couple weeks ago, at least one previously unknown musician has made over $100 selling his music online. Not bad, considering the small number of Bitpass users at this point. Feel free to disparage away, but it's proof that people will pay 50 cents for a song, even from an artist they don't know very well. And of course, iTunes Music Store has been successful doing the same thing, but with less of the money (about 7 cents a track) going to the artist.

Heh, how much have you paid?

I've paid a few bucks to BitPass, and bought a little music from Joshua Ellis, Scott McCloud's comic, and Jim Zubkavich's "Makeshift Miracle" comic, and I still have a buck and a quarter left. I've enjoyed my purchases, and I've enjoyed the feeling of supporting independent artists. I'm looking forward to more artists, bands, and writers coming on board.

Speculation, and I assert otherwise. Find a counter example.

Yup, it's speculation. It's too early to know yet how well some of the micropayment content sellers have done yet. We'll find out in a few weeks.

Sure, that $109.30 for U2 will really persuade them to go indie, and the $10 for Linkin Park shows just how much you wacky kids will pay for your college boy rawk.

Well, first, you're confusing donation systems with micropayment systems. Micropayments aren't about charity; they're about making a transaction.

Second, we do know that as of a couple weeks ago, at least one previously unknown musician has made over $100 selling his music online. Not bad, considering the small number of Bitpass users at this point. Feel free to disparage away, but it's proof that people will pay 50 cents for a song, even from an artist they don't know very well. And of course, iTunes Music Store has been successful doing the same thing, but with less of the money (about 7 cents a track) going to the artist.

Heh, how much have you paid?

I've paid a few bucks to BitPass, and bought a little music from Joshua Ellis, Scott McCloud's comic, and Jim Zubkavich's "Makeshift Miracle" comic, and I still have a buck and a quarter left. I've enjoyed my purchases, and I've enjoyed the feeling of supporting independent artists. I'm looking forward to more artists, bands, and writers coming on board.

Obviously, if the seller doesn't give you enough information to determine if something is valuable to you, or if that determination takes too much effort, you won't buy it. But that's true of everything, not just micropayments.

And transparency isn't the problem you think it is. Let's take online music, for example.

At Joshua Ellis' Love Songs for Bastards site, you can download a lo-fi preview of each song. If you like it, you can pay 50 cents for the hi-fidelity version. The FAQ tells you that that the tracks are 192 Kbps MP3s, which is about as transparent as you get. More transparent than many real world transactions.

On eBay, you don't always know what you're going to get either, but no one would argue that there's no demand for online auctions. Reputation capital systems have helped manage fraud, and that's one reason eBay works. Similar systems will come into place for micropayment content -- I'm working on one.

There's no problem inherent in selling with micropayments that isn't inherent in selling anything. The people who do it right will flourish; the people who do it wrong will perish. At any rate, it oughtta be interesting to watch.

Obviously, if the seller doesn't give you enough information to determine if something is valuable to you, or if that determination takes too much effort, you won't buy it. But that's true of everything, not just micropayments.

And transparency isn't the problem you think it is. Let's take online music, for example.

At Joshua Ellis' Love Songs for Bastards site, you can download a lo-fi preview of each song. If you like it, you can pay 50 cents for the hi-fidelity version. The FAQ tells you that that the tracks are 192 Kbps MP3s, which is about as transparent as you get. More transparent than many real world transactions.

On eBay, you don't always know what you're going to get either, but no one would argue that there's no demand for online auctions. Reputation capital systems have helped manage fraud, and that's one reason eBay works. Similar systems will come into place for micropayment content -- I'm working on one.

There's no problem inherent in selling with micropayments that isn't inherent in selling anything. The people who do it right will flourish; the people who do it wrong will perish. At any rate, it oughtta be interesting to watch.

I also use BitPass to sell my album, Love Songs For Bastards. You can listen to a lofi (48kbps) preview of each song, and if you like it you can buy each MP3 for 50 cents or the entire seven song EP for $3.50 -- which also includes Flash-based liner notes that look kinda cool. You can check it out to see how it works here.

So far, it's selling pretty well, all things considered -- I've made more money in two weeks of selling it online than I would have if I'd signed to a label, because I'm keeping the majority of the revenue from each sale, and I don't have to split it with anybody. Most of the people who've bought the album seem pretty happy with the payment system. If I actually had the time to promote it, I think it would do even better -- right now I'm getting sales mainly from traffic already driven to my site.

In re: value added features...well, uh, I've got Flash based liner notes. I know, I know, maybe not the most exciting thing in the world. But future releases will include music videos both QuickTime-based and Flash-based (I love the idea of abstract videos), press reviews, etc. etc. From now on, I'm not going to be releasing "albums" necessarily. When I finish recording a new song, I'll put it up on the site. If I have a bunch of songs which are somehow thematically or aurally connected, I'll release them all at once, which is sorta like releasing an album, except that you'll still be able to buy them separately.

I think this is the future of music distribution. Not just BitPass, which kicks ass, but self-release via the Net. Then again, I hate record labels.

Good luck!

I'm the community outreach homey for BitPass, the micropayment company which was mentioned on /. a couple of weeks ago -- Scott McCloud is using it to sell online comics. I also use BitPass to sell my album, Love Songs For Bastards. You can listen to a lofi (48kbps) preview of each song, and if you like it you can buy each MP3 for 50 cents or the entire seven song EP for $3.50 -- which also includes Flash-based liner notes that look kinda cool. You can check it out to see how it works here. So far, it's selling pretty well, all things considered -- I've made more money in two weeks of selling it online than I would have if I'd signed to a label, because I'm keeping the majority of the revenue from each sale, and I don't have to split it with anybody. Most of the people who've bought the album seem pretty happy with the payment system. If I actually had the time to In re: value added features...well, uh, I've got Flash based liner notes. I know, I know, maybe not the most exciting thing in the world. But future releases will include music videos both QuickTime-based and Flash-based (I love the idea of abstract videos), press reviews, etc. etc. From now on, I'm not going to be releasing "albums" necessarily. When I finish recording a new song, I'll put it up on the site. If I have a bunch of songs which are somehow thematically or aurally connected, I'll release them all at once, which is sorta like releasing an album, except that you'll still be able to buy them separately. I think this is the future of music distribution. Not just BitPass, which kicks ass, but self-release via the Net. Then again, I hate record labels. Good luck!

I wrote a column about this a couple of weeks back; this is one of my current fascinations.

You can farm out the manufacture of Nike shoes to free trade zone workers in Myanmar for a thousand years, and it is unlikely that you will ever see them rise up and make better shoes -- the entire structure of the shoemaking industry is set up in such a way as to prevent this from happening.

But if an Indian or Taiwanese or Chinese programmer spends enough time writing code, he or she will learn to innovate. It's an unavoidable fact of knowledge work -- the worker will, inevitably, gain knowledge.

Of course, it is also an unavoidable fact that corporations are more likely to use outsourced overseas contract workers than Americans. Why? Because the overseas contract workers will work for a fraction of what Americans do. Does this suck? Sure. Does the fact that it sucks change anything? Not at all.

Developing nations are beginning to take an active interest in information technology as an economic solution. The most obvious reason is that IT is completely independent of natural resources. Anyone can be taught to code, even (as some people I've spoken to claim) illiterates. With the advent of wireless networking -- which is both cheap and more architecturally robust than wires, at least in places where military coups happen on a semi-regular basis), this willingness to move towards an information economy is suddenly a lot more viable than it was back in the bad old days -- y'know, five years ago -- when wiring a nation like Ghana was prohibitively expensive.

There is also the concern that the American government is overlegislating the American technology industry -- crypto as munitions, anybody? And it's certainly true that the Feds have shown a marked tendency to come down on the side of Hollywood in the Great Content Vs. Technology War. Not that this is terribly surprising -- Hollywood, unlike the software industry, has a century-long history of buying the political clout it needs.

Personally, I'm more interested in the speculations that some American companies will be increasingly setting up operations offshore to avoid the reach of Congress, the IRS and Hollywood. Anybody else ever heard the rumor that the reason Microsoft has invested so heavily in Malaysia's Multimedia Super Corridor is so that they could up ship and move if the federal heat got too serious? I find such a possibility fascinating, if a bit far-fetched.

We shall see.