Slashdot Mirror
Information Wants to Suck
RebornData writes: "Suck is running a biting commentary on how the software industry could serve as a role model for the RIAA and MPAA as they look for new, draconian ways to keep control of their digital intellectual property after it becomes clear that litigation isn't going to solve the problem." And from another submission, we have an article in Slate about the same topic - information wanting to be free, or $0.27/pound, or something like that.
The line that worried me the most was something I hadn't considered. The notion being that music industries might try to crack down on individuals performing music for free on the street.
/. earlier today. True, in that case, they have a very thin veil of deception involved with claiming it is the methods of accessing freedb that infringe on their (undeserved) patents. However, what Gracenote is really trying to do is outlaw freedb use by crushing the players that access it.
As far as I can see, this is DIRECTLY comparable to the Gracenote suit posted to
I see a striking parallel to the line about street musicians. Was this just tossed off as another scary what-if analogy that wasn't meant seriously, or does anyone besides me think this sort of destruction of freedoms could occur?
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I don't think consumers will be dumb enough to allow the record and movie industries to move from selling copies to selling licenses. Nor will they allow themselves to be duped into high-costing service contracts.
First, service contracts exist in the computer industry because computers are relatively complicated beasts. Most people have a hard time figuring them out. Most people, on the other hand, can play videotapes, DVDs or CDs. Would people switch from something they know and understand to something they don't and costs more and gives no additional benefit? Nope. If Sony and Phillips decide to stop making CD players or VCRs and move to proprietary formats with high service costs, they will quickly learn why OS/2 failed to catch on in the late 80's : clone killers don't work. (NB: It failed to catch on in the early 90's for different reasons). If Sony and Phillips don't make it, the 2nd tier players will fill up the space.
Second, licensing in the software industry exists for a number of reasons. Again, it is more complicated than songs or movies, and has a high probability of having bugs in it. If you sold software, all sorts of people would cash in their warranties. With licensing, you don't need to make warranties, and you get away with having bugs. How many bugs are there in music or video? That's right - unless the CD or videotape is broken, there is nothing stopping you from using the product.
In short, Suck is spewing without understanding why things are the way they are in the software industry - namely, software and computers are hellishly more complicated to use than movies or music. I don't see how the MPAA or RIAA can use software tactis in their industries when it is so easy to "just press play" to use their wares.
Do TV and print advertisers worry about how many people actually buy stuff because of their advertising? Even if they did, there's no qualitative way to measure it. And TV and print advertisers still pay for advertising.
Just because we can measure click-through rates on the web doesn't mean its useful!
What is big-budget advertising used for today? Yes, it's used to sell stuff, but it's mostly used to build brand recognition, an intangible that can't be measured. Once people get the idea that good advertising can only give indirect returns and thus shouldn't be quantified, web advertising will be more sustainable because the fact that their brand is visible on the web is worth more than click-throughs, which will always be at a lower rate than the advertiser wants.
Remember, advertising is buying the attention of complete strangers! Passive, "brand-building" advertising will be more palatable on the web than obtrusive "Clickmeclickmeclickmenow" advertising, and piss off less people when a web site sells their eyeballs to advertisers (without necessarily consulting the eyeballs)...
A good businessman doesnt care that he makes millions, he just wants more. Look at Bill Gates for example. A horrible human being, but a pretty effective businessman.
While I think that you're right (unfortunately), I think it's pretty dangerous to make the distinction between a good human and a good businessman. Why develop completely separate personas and standards for how you live your life? I'm not a peaceful, nice guy 16 hours a day, and a ruthless, mean, sonofabitch 8 hours a day at work. So while the businessman of your above comment may be good at making money, he's not good for much else. That's a pretty realistic assessment of things, I think. It's unfortunate that to succeed in business you need to become an awful person in the process.
Not that I personally know any CEO's of any megacorporations, but judging by their business practices, I doubt that people like Rupert Murdoch are the nicest guys around. Hopefully someday becoming an "effective businessman" doesn't necessitate becoming a "horrible human being". Observing the ruthlessness of their business practices though, I don't think "success" (on a grand financial level) will happen for said nice guy. Oh well.
iluvpr0n.
Lets now go and take that quote in context:
"But a recent article in Presstime, the house organ of the American Association of Newspapers, reported that a typical newspaper gets about 22 percent of its revenues from readers, while spending 12 percent on paper and ink, 6 percent on running the presses, and 13 percent on delivery and distribution. That's every penny the newspaper gets from its readers plus another 9 percent of its revenue going to expenses that virtually disappear on the Web."
I think that it is fair to say that paper, presses, ink and distribution costs vanish on the internet. Please moderators don't mod up a speed poster for a quote unless you check he was correct first. I look forward to seeing that post -1 Trolled into oblivion where it belongs.
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
The ratio of ads to content on the internet is way lower than it is in any other medium.
One little banner ad at the top of this page is nothing compared to the full-page ads in your paper, the pages with six column-inches of Human Interest and three square feet of brassieres, the 8 minutes per 30 that commercials take over your TV or Radio, the Vogue and Byte where the ad pages outweigh most other magazines, or the billboards where there is no information and all paid advertising even if the ad is a PSA. Some pages like Slate's now have the Big Picture instead of the Banner, but very few are 10% content and 90% bras, mortuaries, and golf discounters.
The internet producer makes no money because the internet sells its reach short.
Except, of course, porn links, where the banner ad is the content.
And the producer can't get per-user fees because that burden on the user is paid to the pipe mechanics. No user wants to pay two people for the same thing.
The problem here isn't it seems that the internet can't be profitable, it's that the people trying to make it profitable haven't figured out that to be profitable it has to work like all the other profitable businesses that came before it.
Bold new world, indeed.
--Blair
I'm not sure how you can say this. While I may disagree with Bill Gates' philosophies towards business, I've never seen/heard/read anything that would indicate that he is a "horrible human being". The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is doing some pretty good work all around the world. Perhaps your ideology is distorting your view a little?
(By the way: they're semi-indie now, spun off into a company called Automatic Media, which also runs Slash user Plastic.)
sulli
RTFJ.
Uhhhh.... No.
You have it almost diametrically the opposite of the way it really is. Startup costs for papers is actually pretty low. You can outsource the printing of a specialty paper without much cost. Visit any street corner in a large city and/or college town, and you'll see papers given away for free that follow this model. They typically are left leaning, and filled with personals, and ads for music acts coming into town.
Unfortunately this doesn't scale very well. The costs per-paper remain about the same, whereas advertisers tend to be interested only in the local audience - for obvious reasons.
Even finding a qualified systems administrator (and knowing who is qualified and who is not) is often simply too hard a task for many non-technical people. However, if you manage to do it, the costs per viewer drop dramatically. It costs you no more to service 10,000 page views a day than it does 1,000 or 100. You're site may be a bit less responsive, but you're saving huge amounts of money per viewer.
The essential problem is still the same however. Most specialty advertising tends to be local. Most advertisers couldn't care one whit about how many New Zealanders who are reading their ads if their product isn't available in New Zealand.
However, global advertisers tend to like T.V. because that has an even lower price-per-view. Plus, the audio-visual TV experience tends to allow for ad campaigns based on emotional manipulation. Highly priced overpolished cars streaming through maple leaves on some country road with an announcer intoning "The new Midlifecrisisia - with 780 horses under it's massive phallic shaped hood" (or something like that) is more likely to get someone to buy the car than any dull page view.
That's why webzines are in trouble.
I think the internet is getting a very bad reputation for being truthful to advertisers. For the first time they are being told exactly how much money they are making of off marketing, and it isn't much. Budweiser makes great commercials but I won't drink one if I think it tastes like urine. The market will decide what sells, not the ads.
In some cases ads do win the battle (preps who buy brand names, for instance). On the whole they are inneffective, and just because internet ads aren't tangible doesn't mean they work any less than real world ads. Think about how many billboards you passed by today. Do you remember any of them?
That's what I thought.
--Dean
Excess isn't rebellion.
A point germaine to this discussion was brought up by my boss the other day (I'm blessed to have a fairly smart boss, instead of a PHB).
Officers of public corporations, such as the members of the {MP,RI}AA, have a responsibility to maximize value for their shareholders. Put into plain language, they are required to do everything in their power to bring in as much money as they can without breaking the law. In many cases, breaking the law is considered the equivalent of starting a fight in a hockey game. Will you gain more advantage by pounding your opponent than you will lose by spending five minutes in the penalty box?
Failure to do this will result in shareholder lawsuits. Not only can the company be sued, the responsible officers can be sued personally under the clause of "fiduciary responsibility" (i.e. your job as an officer of the corporation is to protect and enhance the value of said corporation).
To normal human beings, one looks at M$, the RIAA, etc. with the view of "stupid greedheads. Don't they have enough already?" When viewed through the lens of risking lawsuits simply for being insufficently greedy, it at least allows one to understand the driving force behind their actions.
What do I think about this system? Well... Morally it offends me. On the other hand, it is a system which rewards me personally very well.
If the greed of MS and the {MP,RI}AA really bugs you, plan on working very hard to stop them. Rest assured, they will not stop until they can get a dime every time you put a disc into your CD player. The fund managers will see to it!
j.
"How can information want anything? These [insert vaguely computer related demonic subspecies here] are nuts."
"Information wants to be free, so we must keep it locked up, and ban unauthorized use of the keys."
I've looked upon the statement as a rallying cry against censorship, and as a way of encouraging free-as-in-speech software. But it can also be applied to other bits of information. For instance, the Government publishes a lot of information-- regulations, court cases, etc. It used to be that private firms published a lot of this material for a select audience-- and the prices reflected both the enourmous cost of printing, but also the ability of their audience to pay through the nose for it.
But with the advent of the internet, a lot of those costs are substantially less. "Freeing" this information has important civic advantages.
I also found this page detailing some of the early usage of this adage here
It's about here that you lost my sympathy.
One of the core values of Western Culture is: If you work hard and work well, you will be rewarded. This isn't written down anywhere per se. It's a natural consequence of our own primal, individual selfishness. "Hey! That guy's doing great work and making my life better. I'd better be nice to him so he'll stick around and do more of it." Why bother to work well at all? Again, primal instincts: To distinguish ourselves among the group; to compete for Alpha status; to attract a mate.
It's not immediately clear how your "guaranteed income property" ties into these drives.
You are correct when you say the age of "property" is coming to an end. Computers are the herald, announcing the coming of replicators and nanotech. Once that happens, all property will become as infinitely replicable and proliferable as computer data is today (with the exception of real estate). And you are also correct when you say that the only way to maintain the status quo is to impose an oppressive totalitarian regime.
Where we part ways is what to replace it with. It may be that we, as a species, are genetically compelled to be territorial about things, even when it doesn't matter. If that's the case, we better brush up on the NewSpeak right now, doubleplus quick.
If, however, we can get past that, it's my belief we will enter an age where the chief "currency" will be a person's reputation. That reputation will be what draws people to you, petitioning for your skills/expertise to create/design/build new things. If money still exists, it will be used to pay not for an artisan's artifacts, but for their time (which, even in an age of replicators or matter compilers, cannot be duplicated).
There is a downside to this "utopia", of course. Because replicators will be ubiquitous, people will work only when they want to. It will be interesting to see what happens to the human animal when we no longer need to do anything.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
For instance, incorporated entities should not be able to donate money to the political process. Individuals of that corporation should have every right to spend their paychecks ($1k I believe is the limit) from that corporation. I am not sure about small business owners however. I am inclined to say that the business shouldn't be able to make a donation while the owner is free to do so like any other individual.
One issue I have with this solution is "no taxation without representation." However there is some precedent as corporations cannot vote and are taxed. Also there is the pragmatic issue of a corporation moving to another country that allows them to own it. I would just hope that a society based on principle which would let this sort of outcome occur would be prosperous enough by its own ideology that companies would *have* to trade with that country and would want to incorporate within that countries boundaries.
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!