Who the FUCK moderated this as a troll? I think this post makes a really good point: it's natural, almost unavoidable, for one IM system to have nearly all the market share because the point of IM is to communicate with other people, and you can only do that if everyone is using the same system. I don't know much about economics, but wouldn't this be the kind of thing economists refer to as a "natural monopoly"? Like utility companies? And haven't these companies historically been subject to heavy government regulation?
I'm afraid you're the one who has it all wrong. Information doesn't want to be free the way I want a sandwich and a backrub; it wants to be free the way a ball I throw in the air wants to come back to the ground. Information tends to spread regardless of how anyone tries to affect its movement. Of course, the medium by which information moves will affect the speed of this spreading (the internet is better than printing presses are better than cavemen grunting at each other, as media for information-freedom).
That said, you're right in that *I* want certain information to be easily accessible, and certain corporations want the flow of information to stop, except to move as they direct it (which is what the saying "information wants to be free" alleges to be impossible), but the point is that we can examine the flow of information and say that information wants to flow freely the same way a gas wants to fill up its container.
Slashdot Mirror
Who the FUCK moderated this as a troll? I think this post makes a really good point: it's natural, almost unavoidable, for one IM system to have nearly all the market share because the point of IM is to communicate with other people, and you can only do that if everyone is using the same system. I don't know much about economics, but wouldn't this be the kind of thing economists refer to as a "natural monopoly"? Like utility companies? And haven't these companies historically been subject to heavy government regulation?
That said, you're right in that *I* want certain information to be easily accessible, and certain corporations want the flow of information to stop, except to move as they direct it (which is what the saying "information wants to be free" alleges to be impossible), but the point is that we can examine the flow of information and say that information wants to flow freely the same way a gas wants to fill up its container.