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Malcolm Gladwell Challenges the Idea of "Free"
An anonymous reader brings us another bump on the bumpy road of Chris Anderson's new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price, which we discussed a week ago. Now the Times (UK) is reporting on a dustup between Anderson and Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers. Recently Gladwell reviewed, or rather deconstructed, Anderson's book in the New Yorker. Anderson has responded with a blog post that addresses some, but by no means all, of Gladwell's criticisms, and The Times is inclined to award the match to Gladwell on points. Although their reviewer didn't notice that Gladwell, in setting up the idea of "Free" as a straw man, omitted a critical half of Stewart Brand's seminal quote.
I'm free to take the first post! Yaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
fags, cripples and retards need to be thrown into ovens so they'll no longer be a burden on society. it's time for us to write to our governments and request an end to these disgusting wastes of life.
Summary, n.: a comprehensive and usually brief abstract, recapitulation, or compendium of previously stated facts or statements.
That is exactly what this slashdot post isn't.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Could anyone understand that mess? Is this a book review? If I didn't know that "outliers" was a book, I'd be clicking past.
For hipster trash neourbanites like you.
Get the weekender so we can tell you what to think, and what to parrot off to your friends in order to sound smart and cultured.
I'm done tinkering with Linux.
Windows 7 - Because your time isn't free.
Chinese people suck
Chinese people suck
Ching chang ching chang chiiiiing chong!
Ching chang ching chang chiiiiing chong!
Chinese people suuuuuuck.
Chinese people suck
Chinese people suck
Ching chang ching chang chiiiiing chong!
Ching chang ching chang chiiiiing chong!
Chinese people suuuuuuck.
less whitespace; less repetition. woo wei, wing wang wing wong, ching chang chong!
Does Gladwell also have a problem with the Wikipedia articles that Anderson plagiarized for the book?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
...it just wants to be anthropomorphized.
The CB App. What's your 20?
FACT: Chuck Norris is the only one who can read Malcom Gladwell without losing brain cells.
But even he loses one.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
I love how this guy discovers the obvious and then gets people to buy his books. What is it? His hair cut fools people into thinking he is smart?
The biggest point, in my opinion, that Gladwell makes, is that you still need to find a way to make money. Both sides use the example of youtube, which gives away everything for free. However, they have infrastructure costs of somewhere around $300 million a year, which they haven't been able to cover with advertising. Will they be able to find a way to cover their costs, or not? I don't know the answer to that, maybe eventually.
I think Anderson is kind of stumbling upon a point an MBA told me once, that given enough time, all new technology becomes a commodity. There are a dozen word processors you can choose from, a dozen different types computers, a dozen types of memory to choose from, hundreds of flash game sites (which are free, but 20 years ago people paid real money for games just like those). So for the most part, things will get sold for a little more than the cost to create them (the MBA then went on to tell me a number of different techniques to 'lock in' customers to your product: trapping users with file format was one, there were many other more devious methods, and Microsoft uses many of them. I don't underestimate quality MBAs anymore).
What Anderson is saying is that more and more, marketers will use freeness to suck users in. This is actually common knowledge among marketers, they've been playing with 'free' for years, and they are really excited about it, and talk about it amongst themselves, and to anyone else who will listen. Basically Anderson is right.
What Gladwell is saying is that you still need a way to cover your costs. Basically he is right as well.
They are both right, and what's more, if you asked an MBA about this, they might wonder why you are arguing about such basic ideas. And if you ask nicely, they'll tell you tons more about things you never even thought of.
Qxe4
Did it appear to anyone else that we may have temporarily slahdotted wiki? This may be the first time that that anyone's ever actually had to click the links to find out whats going on, so it seems plausible. At least its working again now.
The item is reporting a Times article, along with some related links. The issue is a familiar one and the language perfectly grammatical. What's the problem?
I piss off bigots.
They're both a bit wrong. Info on the net isn't free. I pay for an internet connection. People pay for computers to connect to the internet, or pay the travel cost (which still takes time, although public transport, fuel costs or even food to power their legs/arms also have costs) to a library or other free location.
The reality is that the cost to access information and collect information has changed dramatically. This is true for the newspaper producers, their access to info from reporters etc. is less costly now. It's also true for the consumer. The information people used to be happy to buy from newspapers is easier to get in other ways now. That's just the way things are.
I can understand newspaper people who complain about their lost revenue and whine about people who think the information isn't worth as much as it used to be. The business model for manure haulers and buggy whip makers changed too. That's life. Propping up failed business models with taxpayer funds or new laws to keep prices high for something that just isn't worth the old price, seems like the wrong thing to do. It just encourages large corporations to not worry about being economically viable.
Challenging the idea of "Free"?
I thought that was the job of "the chosen people".
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Throwing your computer off the roof - Because your time isn't free
There are other reasons for throwing your computer off the roof. In the early days of Apple we had a little commercial system based on Apple Pascal that ran on a ][+. It was a true blivit in the classical sense, something sort of written that ran a part of the business until it couldn't anymore.
When we took it to the roof of the building and threw it into the parking lot, someone remarked "That's the longest it's ever gone without a crash". We used 11/70's from that point until they couldn't do the job either, but they were too big to conveniently throw off the roof.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
wikipedia:
1000 times taller than the average human and still classed as a midget?
Political analyst Matthew Yglesias over at CAP has a fairly good take on both the book and the review at the CAP web site.
sPh
To try and make a long story short, but not too short:
Malcolm Gladwell and Chris Anderson are, according to the Guardian newspaper, "Two of the world's leading thinkers". A title seemingly obtained from a long career of writing endless books about things no one really cares about, but everyone likes to have an opinion on.
Andeson is the author of a book called, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price", in which he argued that in an age where terabyte drives can be had for less than $100 , and megabytes of data can be whizzed around the tubes in seconds, a story or articles or other pieces of data only a few kilobytes in size can only be worth, well, nothing.
The spat began when , Gladwell, in his review of the book, became a bit, harsh, in his critques of Anderson, calling his arguments "pithy"(sic!) and "uncompromising", and generally regarded Anderson's arguments as lacking in substance(my word!).
Unfortunately, this rather vicious assault came at a time when Anderson was recently caught plagiarising material, and worse from Wikipedia, so he must have felt a need to defend his intellectual honor from Gladwell's slights. He therefore promptly responded with am open letter titled "Dear Malcom: Why so threatened?"
At this point everyone in the playground let out a collective "OOOUUUUHHHHHHHHH!!!" and someone was heard to yell "Fight!". Needless to say, this sort of hubbub is rarely seen in such great intellectual circles, and the social clubs are just brimming with gossip about the scandal.
The Guardian, ever the vigilant reporter of great matters of state, has dutifully brought the matter to the attention of the greater public. In addition, their great commentator Murad Ahmed, has already declared that Gladwell "wins this one on points", which is certain to stir things up a bit.
It's all so exciting! Wouldn't you agree?!
May the Maths Be with you!
Linux - Because your time isn't free.
Linux the operating system for people whom time has no value.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
Guarantied to attract at least 8 fanbois since 1972.
As an added bonus, the above offtopic flamebait has people replying to it about the value of their time.
There is more unintentional comedy in this thread than in an average Turkish remake of a famous action movie.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Malcolm Gladwell is one of those people, not precisely stupid, but so shallow and lacking in insight that he makes Chris Anderson, who is simply a hack, look brilliant by comparison. Gladwell, lest we forget, specializes in gushing soft journalism pieces on people whom he has designated as "great". He's what I call a Mensa bottom feeder - he produces work for people who like to think about how smart they are, which is not how actually-smart people spend their time.
Gladwell wouldn't know what to do with an actual idea if he had one (I envisage a dog with a great piece of artwork, sort of chewing on it.) Now, Anderson's piece is competent hackery, which is better than most people could do I don't mean this critically, but something about it intersects with the sort of faux-highbrow pablum that Gladwell thinks he understands. This is very threatning to Gladwell - going back to the dog analogy, it's like he's got some glimpse of a world of ideas and there's a threat to him there that he can't really understand. Gladwell is getting good money to stick his nose up Bill Gates' behind and there's an army of other dogs willing to do that for free. So he lashes out in a rage, and since he can dimly percieve Anderson (but not the more interesting and provocative people whose work Anderson has extended), Anderson becomes his target.
Again, I have nothing against a competent hack. But I do have some real criticism for Anderson - seriously, you admire Gladwell?
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
is dying. Fact: And she ran Troubled OS. NOow
No, this is not a book review. And yes, in his books Gladwell does state the "obvious" and isn't always on point with his assertions. But in this critique of Anderson's ideas, Gladwell makes his point with one phrase: Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Hyperion; $26.99) Yes, for all of Anderson's extolling of the virtues of free content, he's still selling his book for money.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
...and it was basically a verbal blowjob for KIPP. When he wasn't doing that, he was praising Japanese models while poo-pooing different levels of ability, while Japanese models are super differentiated to the point that you have to earn your way into high school. Just a hodgepodge of inconsistencies that made his speech (pun intended) an outlier.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)
Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]
Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]
Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]
- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]
- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organization known as IRGUN who is obsessed with gun control and compulsory service to the country in a capacity wh
The summary reads like gay flame fest.
Damn, you beat me to it. To your link, I'll add the abstract of his post:
Where Anderson goes off the rails is his suggestion that the "give it away" business model is actually a promising business model.
Competition is good for customers because it destroys profits. The way you make real money is by getting into situations where you're insulated from competition. Meanwhile, as market sectors turn to a Free business model, they're just going to become way less lucrative.
Example: YouTube loses money. But since Google as a whole can easily afford to cover YouTube's losses, it's hard to see Google management shutting down a market-leader. As the underlying technology gets cheaper the scale of the losses should get smaller, making it ever-more-realistic to run the business at a loss and thus ever-less-likely that a pay-to-play vendor can move in and charge monopoly rents.
That's the real lesson of Free. The combination of competition, the near-zero marginal cost of production, and the customer draw of zero pricing means that the market-leader in video is bound to lose money. To win the market, you need to make your product Free. But while your marginal cost is near-zero, it's not actually zero, so you're losing money.
Luke, help me take this mask off
It is common knowledge that has been confirmed by various higher-ups at Google over the past few years, that as far as Google is concerned, "What is good for The Web, is good for Google". Google spends hundreds of millions per year on various free giveaways that it will not now or probably ever recoup costs on - things like Chrome, supporting Firefox, YouTube, etc.
Why does it do this? Because the more people utilize the web, the more it becomes the center of their daily lives, they more they will rely on Google as the librarian of all of that knowledge - which means they will get more money from their ads.
Google does not have to make money any project it launches, as long as whatever it is doing is going to cause you to use the web more in one way or another, because they know if you are using the web, then you are probably going to be searching it with Google.com.
Gladwell just doesn't get it. Chris Anderson IS finding ways to make money off of giving things for free.
No really, he took something free (wikipedia) and charged money for it.
How dare you reply my first post with rubbish like this? You deserve to be slated a thousand cuts
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
Man, it's not exactly clash of the intellectual titans, is it?
It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.
What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:
I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual [goatse.fr] propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.
Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail [microsoft.com], which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'
As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted [salon.com] on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.
And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo [comp-u-geek.net] slut [rotten.com]!
Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual [goatse.fr] perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children [slashdot.org]. To quote from the article linked:
'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'
Is this why you were touching your penis [rotten.com] in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?
We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual [goatse.fr] terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual
My take is that Gladwell is post-peak and he knows it.
IIRC his last book got kind of panned, and I don't know if the one before that was super well received, either, and the last thing he wants is someone else with "big, revolutionary & daring ideas" shoving him out of the spotlight.
I mean, if that happens, he's just another loudmouth with an iPhone and a bunch of opinions.
Gladwell's "big" ideas and how-smart-am-I delivery I think will be non-starters in a world of 15% unemployment. They may keep going over big among the faux intelligentsia still capable of affording $6 lattes and Kindles, but won't mean shit to those of us sharecropping the back yard.
... is that measured with chairs?
I think Anderson is kind of stumbling upon a point an MBA told me once, that given enough time, all new technology becomes a commodity. There are a dozen word processors you can choose from, a dozen different types computers, a dozen types of memory to choose from, hundreds of flash game sites (which are free, but 20 years ago people paid real money for games just like those). So for the most part, things will get sold for a little more than the cost to create them (the MBA then went on to tell me a number of different techniques to 'lock in' customers to your product: trapping users with file format was one, there were many other more devious methods, and Microsoft uses many of them. I don't underestimate quality MBAs anymore).
Commoditization is usually a surface phenomenon. When you start using things you always find little niggles and poor design choices that you have to learn to live with, because you didn't have the knowledge and time to choose a more suitable product.
There is so much potential for marketers to make their products stand out, and even deserve a premium, by giving their potential customers more help, rather than just agenda-pushing ads and blurb.
This help can be provided by independent consumer advisors. There are ways for product makers to encourage and reward the people who help their customers, without compromising the independence of these advisors.
no one is gonna care.
Well put. Would have used my mod points, but I had already comments on how painful it is to read Gladwell, especially knowing people take him seriously.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
It's not strictly true to talk about the kinds of economic models Anderson is talking about (if I understand this correctly) as "free". They just involve transactions on the consumer end that are too small to bother collecting money for -- from the consumer. That's not anything particularly revolutionary. Television ran for years that way with advertising revenues.
But if you look at television news, you see the Achilles heel of these models when it comes to journalism. The three national networks for many years had news shows which were produced to serious journalistic standards. But local news was a practically a by-word for cheap sensationalism. "If it bleeds it leads". It's not that it is impossible to have high quality local news, newspapers did it for years. It just wasn't economical to put the effort in for local markets unless the consumer ponied up dough.
The secret of "free" information is that those tiny increments of consumer value -- usually eyeball time on an advertisement, but it could possibly be other thigns -- can be aggregated on an enormous scale into packages that are valuable enough to pay for things like journalism. Under Internet models, local news gathered to journalistic standards is not economical.
Now various crowd source models such as twitter have their place in the information ecosystem. They may beat journalism to the punch in many instances, or correct mistakes journalists make. But we need journalists to correct the mistakes the crowd makes even more. You can't use a model like Wikipedia as proof that quality journalism is possible with volunteers. Journalism is much more difficult than holding forth on a topic you might know a little (or a lot) about. Suggesting that something like Wikipedia can replace journalism is like suggesting it can replace science.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
A well-crafted post, sir!
It's amazing to me how the description of this article in no way describes what it is actually about!
Most notably that Anderson bases most of his argument on the idea that there is an enormous difference between 'extremely cheap' and 'free' ("the magic of the word 'free' creates instant demand among consumers" that is vastly higher than the increase in demand seen between charging $0.10 and $0.01) but, as Gladwell points out, at no point does Anderson say that information/data storage is actually free, just that it is heading that direction asymptotically. As such, it is still, always, $0.01 or thereabouts, and not actually 'free'. So by Anderson's own argument, all the advantages that you get from free information and a post-scarcity society, don't ever happen.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Oh, you're from Crete? I'm not, so I suppose I must be allowed into the fancy clubs... :-)
I think the word you're probably looking for is "cretin", i.e. "a stupid, vulgar, or insensitive person : clod, lout" (Merriam-Webster). "Cretan", properly capitalized to boot as it is in your comment, means "someone from Crete".
But if you are indeed a Cretan, then I suppose I must be a cretin. Doh!
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
The lower the price of production gets, the more valuable IP gets. Consider cars for instance (this is Slashdot after all). The basics of building a car cost far less today than they did in 1950. Put another way, if you wanted to build a 1950-level car today, you could sell it for a lot less (in real dollars) than you could then. Manufacturing technology and management is just far more efficient now.
But do cars cost a lot less now than they did in 1950? No. The reason is that today's cars are far more complex and capable machines than cars were in the 1950s. A greater percentage of a car's value today is IP than it was in 1950.
Pharmaceuticals are an even better example. It is not that expensive to manufacture pharmaceuticals. What makes them expensive is their design, and the knowledge of how to use them safely. If you pick up any given pharmaceutical pill, a huge portion of its value is the IP is represents.
Finally consider the pure-IP products like software and music. The cost to reproduce a hit game or album is very, very low. But it is no easier to produce the ORIGINAL of a hit game or album now than it was decades ago. It's not like every band blows up like the Beatles today. If anything the cheaper reproduction has made it even harder to create truly stand-out IP that sells widely. In a world where every song is free, we still have only so much time to listen. Without price the only basis for competition is how good or catchy the song is itself--the pure IP. And the Pirate Bay does not help produce that.
A big failing of Anderson and others (he's certainly not the first to play the "free is inevitable" game), is a failure to take into account the role of law in markets. The law places limits within which the free market operates, including with respect to IP. If it is against the law to freely copy IP, with fines or jail at stake, there will be a deterrence to "free" and copies of IP will retain a price within the official, legal market.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This is pretty much where this debate was during the IT bubble 10 years ago. Everyone was wondering how all the .coms were planning on making money when everything they sold was "free."
Of course, those services that truly were free didn't last, and those that actually weren't free and had many strings attached didn't last either, except the latter pissed a lot of people off in the process. Some managed to IPO and raise money successfully, but raising money and making money are different things, and in the end everyone lost except those who knew when to get out.
They should require by law that every company disclose how they make their money and how they cover their costs. This used to be obvious. Only recently has this become convoluted with all the "innovation" in the financial sector and with contracts. They should also require "simple commerce" without any non-upfront, opt-out type of fees.
Manipulation is not innovation. It is manipulation.
Gladwin said Anderson "forgets the plants and the power lines". I think such positions are one-dimensional, shallow. They assume that costs, in this case power distribution, are static.
The very act of reducing the cost of the power generation by 20% may iteratively reduce the costs of other business, wages, and of living itself, ultimately reducing the costs across the board. One example may be that, if fuel was cheap, or free, it may be cost effective and more imperative to reduce or eliminate the much higher distribution costs, maybe by installing smaller local reactors like the Toshiba. If the cost to heat your home dropped by 20%, your distribution costs dropped, and your purchased goods were made with cheaper energy costs, you may take a certain percentage less in wages to live. Iterate many times across all business and society to reach equilibrium.
Whats the matter, Free not working out for you and now you get the hairs on your back in a raise because someone dares to challenge your Free Idiotocracy?
If you need a book to explain that everything you are, have, done and will do in your miserable lives was the product of NOT FREE, then you are a fucking TOOL of the highest order. That should lead you to conclude that FREE means SLAVE dumbasses. But you have been manipulated since you came out of your moms rotten hole.
If you cling to your Free Idiotocracy you will effectively code yourself out of work and a future dummy. Wake Up fools.
FREE = a Randian outcome in which you are the slave
Now run to your precious internet to find "links to truth" just as you did when you pulled the lever for Obama who is now ushering in your collective demise in ways you cant even begin to understand since there are no links to lay it all out in a way you can understand, your a fucking mind slave.
I have been railing here for years, I am a troll, not because I live under a bridge but because moderation here deems my viewpoint so. I can see now, I was right as usual as more and more of you are pumping gas and yet are still clinging to your marxist delusions of FREE.
Enjoy the slippery slope for you are doomed
PS Fuck You and your Mods and Score you fuckwads
I think that something to keep in mind is the "Free Beer" vs. "Free Speech" aspects. Anderson/Gladwell/Yglesias are focusing on the Free Beer side. For instance:
- Google is giving away a video sharing service, free beer.
- RedHat sells a product that can be copied, modified, and sold or given away by customers, free speech.
Google elected to give away the video service, but isn't dependent on serving free video.
RedHat's business stands upon contributing to and selling a product that others contributed to and sold.
RedHat's customers are free to do with that product just about whatever they want with, as long as the customer's don't turn around and market themselves as RedHat (ergo, CentOS doesn't get sued). YouTube users are limited by the copyrights on the uploaded material, and Google's willingness to fund the service.
In either case, competition has destroyed potential profit that would accrue to a monopolist. However, there is money to be made in Free Speech, provided one adds value of some sort. There is no money in Free Beer, other than to deny potential competitors a market, or as just another form of marketing overhead.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Whoa there, you use so much name calling that a rational person is forced to disregard your perceptions.
This is false because the next version of Chrome is going to ship with extensions, and one of the first extensions to be ported is AdBlock.
The composer Brahms responded to a review of his latest symphony: "Dear sir: I am seated in the smallest room in my house. I have your review in front of me, and very soon it will be behind me."
Which was recently posted on /. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.