A commercial? No of course not. But how about HAVING to work 3 jobs just to make ends meet because you're paid SO little money that you have no CHOICE!
See how quickly that "self reliance" and "free fucking human being" goes out the window?
Work is the necessary evil to get money. Nothing more, nothing less. I can find stuff to do just fine myself, there is no need to keep me occupied. But I need money, like everyone else. That is the only reason to work.
Any work has to provide enough money to make it worth the time wasted on it.
There is a difference between being capable of cooperation and being a cog in a collective. It's about as much a difference as between being an individualist and a sociopath.
I never quite grasp why some people can only think in extremes.
They are? Awesome! I decide that I don't work anymore!
Wait. No, I can't do that, then I won't have no money.
Ok, then I decide to only do what I want to do!
Wait, no, that doesn't work either, nobody's going to pay me to post on/. all day.
Ok, then I decide that I find a job where they don't care that I post on/. all day!
Unfortunately such jobs don't exist.
Then I go self-employed and do it!
Yes, but still... nobody's going to pay for that.
Making my own decisions sucks. Mostly because they're not my decisions at all. In the end, I can only decide between choices others have offered, and the chances are high that none of them are what I'd decide for if I really had to choose. It almost feels like an election, you know...
And your money goes abroad, fueling the economy there instead of here. It's basically the same problem you can potentially have with immigrants who send the money they earn here back home to their family where the 30 bucks surplus they maybe generate are a fortune, while here it's basically a dinner for two at a restaurant.
Now extrapolate and you have a restaurant near you closing down because there aren't enough patrons frequenting it. Leading to its waiters getting unemployed. And the domino line continues.
Sending money abroad weakens your economy. And may eventually endanger your own job.
To paraphrase a German comedian, I need money, not an occupation. I can keep myself busy just fine, don't worry about that.
Working is the necessary evil to get money. Just as much as the employee is the necessary evil to profit (as is the customer, by the way). Stop dancing around the subject and celebrate the "always working" idiot.
But of course they get a phone number from me. Same way they get an email address. Every single one gets a different one. And when a telemarkedroid calls, you know exactly which company is insecure enough to hand it over, and who not to trust with any actually critical information.
People are willing to pay for comfort with no bullshit (i.e. ads) getting between them and their entertainment. That's basically the success behind those models.
To be honest, no, I didn't know. Neither did I care. It works. No need to spend time on it. It also keeps the games up to date, patched and compatible. It lets me browse a huge game catalogue from the comfort of my sofa.
Yes, comfort sells. Time is a commodity for me, and time I spend doing stuff I like is valuable to me.
Our biggest mistake was that we wanted the masses in our garden, thinking that this would actually make it even greater than it was.
Because that's what the internet originally was. Our beautiful garden. Sure, it was more a jungle where you needed a machete and some survival skills to get shit done, because the tools that everyone can use like today didn't exist, but we tamed the jungle and built some beautiful gardens. Most of it hand-planted because, like I said, there weren't many tools.
From time to time someone poked his head in from the outside and saw that the whole deal was kinda nice, but also intimidating. So we went and said "hey, how about we create some tools that don't need that much survival skill to make your own garden?" And we did. And some people came in and were happy. Well, yes, their gardens looked more like when a child got a hold of a lawn mower and drove around, but it was kinda cute, still.
For a while, it was awesome. We built, we shared seeds and yes, we had our little private farm under the camo net back there, too for... our private consumption. No harm done, ok?
Then one day corporations looked at our garden and asked if they can have a plot, to sell seeds and gardening tools. And we thought the idea was awesome! Hey, cheaper seeds and some professional tools? Great idea. Not only will we have it much easier, it will attract more people to our beautiful garden, more people who will create gardening art, grow new hybrids, share the seeds and tools, this could be it, the big thing. When hundreds of dedicated people could create a beautiful thing, thousands and millions could only create something absolutely stunning!
We were so naive...
We expected people to be like us. Wanting to create, explore, improve and grow. That illusion faltered quickly when we saw that most of the people that flooded our garden didn't give a shit about the roses we planted, wanted to lie in the hammock under the apple tree and instead of planting anything, all they wanted to do is pick our apples and throw the cores over their shoulder, preferably hitting us on the head. And then of course there were the idiots that found our camo netted "private area" and yelled from the top of their lungs "OMG! DUDES! DOPE!!!"
Didn't take long 'til it was gone and we had to find better camo'ed places...
The next unpleasant revelation was that just because corporations wanted to sell us seeds didn't mean that they were in the slightest interested in us taking them and hybridizing them. A couple people quickly felt the slap on the wrist when they tried that, you're supposed to plant them, enjoy the flowers that grow out of them and then buy a new batch. Harvest your own? Or even... SHARE them with your neighbors? Heresy!
Not to mention that a lot of us noticed that as soon as their gardens found some admirers that loved wandering through them, it didn't take long until some corporation came in and either offered money or just an eviction notice. That really took us off guard, you see. We operated on a cooperative base, and we were simply not used to this sort of bullying.
Like I said, we were naive.
And now that garden we once had is a corporate concrete desert. Bloodless. Lifeless. Devoid of any creativity. We eventually accepted defeat and went. And we are building a new garden. Again, it's a lot of hassle, a lot of jungle, few tools to work with and an uphill battle against "the elements".
This time, though, we decided to do one key thing different.
The analogy is flawed in one critical aspect: To make your burglary parallel work, you'd have to break the lock at your door once so every burglar in the world can go in and collect whatever he wants from your home. Repeatedly. Over and over again.
Because that's what DRM locks are. It only has to be broken once. By one single person. Then everyone can get in. There is no "casual" angle. The "casual" copier waits for it to hit TPB.
It works because people don't think about this. Would I be pissed if Steam goes belly up and all the games I bought are gone? Yes. Do I think about that now? No. I still play Civ3 from time to time, and I just recently bought a couple of very old games that I used to have again on Steam for a handful of bucks because, yes, convenience. I just recently noticed by accident that the DVD drive in my computer must have gotten disconnected at some point in the past. I didn't notice. I don't use it.
And that's the gaming machine.
Steam offers exactly what the GP said, and that's its big selling point: Convenience. It's hassle-free, easy to use, stable and mostly bug free. It is what people want: It "just works". People are willing to pay for that. And people are willing to put up with DRM for that, even. As long as said DRM isn't going to piss them off.
What pisses people off? If your DRM gets into the way of their fun. That includes (but is by no means restricted to): Mandatory trailers you can't skip, fickle DVD copy protection where you have to insert the DVD 10 times until it works once, "don't dare to copy this" screen after DDTCT screen before what you want starts, unskipable ads before your content comes on, having to click through 20 license agreements for every episode you want to watch...
Notice a pattern? People hate it when you steal their time. Don't do that. If your DRM doesn't do that, they will accept it.
And more and more of them notice it, which results in fewer and fewer of them buying.
Instead of now learning that "Hey, people stop buying our stuff, maybe we have to adjust the contracts to win them back" the train of thought is "Hey, people stop buying our stuff, clearly they must steal it".
An old German proverb goes "The scoundrel thinks others are just the way he is himself". Guess it's applicable here.
Slashdot Mirror
Pay peanuts, get code monkeys.
A commercial? No of course not. But how about HAVING to work 3 jobs just to make ends meet because you're paid SO little money that you have no CHOICE!
See how quickly that "self reliance" and "free fucking human being" goes out the window?
That's stupid. Simple and plainly.
Work is the necessary evil to get money. Nothing more, nothing less. I can find stuff to do just fine myself, there is no need to keep me occupied. But I need money, like everyone else. That is the only reason to work.
Any work has to provide enough money to make it worth the time wasted on it.
More often than not, the person who says "fuck you" never had to struggle to get anything.
Who gets gunned down depends entirely on whether they can convince the army or similar powers to work for them and against their interests.
There is a difference between being capable of cooperation and being a cog in a collective. It's about as much a difference as between being an individualist and a sociopath.
I never quite grasp why some people can only think in extremes.
Not quite as well as Sweden, Germany, Austria or France, that's for sure...
I was more thinking of a meat grinder. Feet first.
They are? Awesome! I decide that I don't work anymore!
Wait. No, I can't do that, then I won't have no money.
Ok, then I decide to only do what I want to do!
Wait, no, that doesn't work either, nobody's going to pay me to post on /. all day.
Ok, then I decide that I find a job where they don't care that I post on /. all day!
Unfortunately such jobs don't exist.
Then I go self-employed and do it!
Yes, but still... nobody's going to pay for that.
Making my own decisions sucks. Mostly because they're not my decisions at all. In the end, I can only decide between choices others have offered, and the chances are high that none of them are what I'd decide for if I really had to choose. It almost feels like an election, you know...
And your money goes abroad, fueling the economy there instead of here. It's basically the same problem you can potentially have with immigrants who send the money they earn here back home to their family where the 30 bucks surplus they maybe generate are a fortune, while here it's basically a dinner for two at a restaurant.
Now extrapolate and you have a restaurant near you closing down because there aren't enough patrons frequenting it. Leading to its waiters getting unemployed. And the domino line continues.
Sending money abroad weakens your economy. And may eventually endanger your own job.
IIRC calling someone a "moron" is one.
They do? Where? Not even abroad. Even in China you don't have poors that get richer. You only have a small group of people who oppress the rest.
It's heartwarming how quickly the commies have embraced capitalist ideals, ain't it?
Here's your theme song.
To paraphrase a German comedian, I need money, not an occupation. I can keep myself busy just fine, don't worry about that.
Working is the necessary evil to get money. Just as much as the employee is the necessary evil to profit (as is the customer, by the way). Stop dancing around the subject and celebrate the "always working" idiot.
Working is the necessary evil, not the goal.
A bit less than a mouthful.
But of course they get a phone number from me. Same way they get an email address. Every single one gets a different one. And when a telemarkedroid calls, you know exactly which company is insecure enough to hand it over, and who not to trust with any actually critical information.
It's not that it's being blocked, it's more that nobody really gives a shit.
People are willing to pay for comfort with no bullshit (i.e. ads) getting between them and their entertainment. That's basically the success behind those models.
To be honest, no, I didn't know. Neither did I care. It works. No need to spend time on it. It also keeps the games up to date, patched and compatible. It lets me browse a huge game catalogue from the comfort of my sofa.
Yes, comfort sells. Time is a commodity for me, and time I spend doing stuff I like is valuable to me.
Hey, the "Music And Film Industry Association of America" is a valid acronym!
True. But back then there wasn't a few billion homo sapiens trying to survive on it.
But hey, the planet will survive. And it's better off without that parasite, too.
Our biggest mistake was that we wanted the masses in our garden, thinking that this would actually make it even greater than it was.
Because that's what the internet originally was. Our beautiful garden. Sure, it was more a jungle where you needed a machete and some survival skills to get shit done, because the tools that everyone can use like today didn't exist, but we tamed the jungle and built some beautiful gardens. Most of it hand-planted because, like I said, there weren't many tools.
From time to time someone poked his head in from the outside and saw that the whole deal was kinda nice, but also intimidating. So we went and said "hey, how about we create some tools that don't need that much survival skill to make your own garden?" And we did. And some people came in and were happy. Well, yes, their gardens looked more like when a child got a hold of a lawn mower and drove around, but it was kinda cute, still.
For a while, it was awesome. We built, we shared seeds and yes, we had our little private farm under the camo net back there, too for ... our private consumption. No harm done, ok?
Then one day corporations looked at our garden and asked if they can have a plot, to sell seeds and gardening tools. And we thought the idea was awesome! Hey, cheaper seeds and some professional tools? Great idea. Not only will we have it much easier, it will attract more people to our beautiful garden, more people who will create gardening art, grow new hybrids, share the seeds and tools, this could be it, the big thing. When hundreds of dedicated people could create a beautiful thing, thousands and millions could only create something absolutely stunning!
We were so naive...
We expected people to be like us. Wanting to create, explore, improve and grow. That illusion faltered quickly when we saw that most of the people that flooded our garden didn't give a shit about the roses we planted, wanted to lie in the hammock under the apple tree and instead of planting anything, all they wanted to do is pick our apples and throw the cores over their shoulder, preferably hitting us on the head. And then of course there were the idiots that found our camo netted "private area" and yelled from the top of their lungs "OMG! DUDES! DOPE!!!"
Didn't take long 'til it was gone and we had to find better camo'ed places...
The next unpleasant revelation was that just because corporations wanted to sell us seeds didn't mean that they were in the slightest interested in us taking them and hybridizing them. A couple people quickly felt the slap on the wrist when they tried that, you're supposed to plant them, enjoy the flowers that grow out of them and then buy a new batch. Harvest your own? Or even ... SHARE them with your neighbors? Heresy!
Not to mention that a lot of us noticed that as soon as their gardens found some admirers that loved wandering through them, it didn't take long until some corporation came in and either offered money or just an eviction notice. That really took us off guard, you see. We operated on a cooperative base, and we were simply not used to this sort of bullying.
Like I said, we were naive.
And now that garden we once had is a corporate concrete desert. Bloodless. Lifeless. Devoid of any creativity. We eventually accepted defeat and went. And we are building a new garden. Again, it's a lot of hassle, a lot of jungle, few tools to work with and an uphill battle against "the elements".
This time, though, we decided to do one key thing different.
We will not invite anyone in.
The analogy is flawed in one critical aspect: To make your burglary parallel work, you'd have to break the lock at your door once so every burglar in the world can go in and collect whatever he wants from your home. Repeatedly. Over and over again.
Because that's what DRM locks are. It only has to be broken once. By one single person. Then everyone can get in. There is no "casual" angle. The "casual" copier waits for it to hit TPB.
It works because people don't think about this. Would I be pissed if Steam goes belly up and all the games I bought are gone? Yes. Do I think about that now? No. I still play Civ3 from time to time, and I just recently bought a couple of very old games that I used to have again on Steam for a handful of bucks because, yes, convenience. I just recently noticed by accident that the DVD drive in my computer must have gotten disconnected at some point in the past. I didn't notice. I don't use it.
And that's the gaming machine.
Steam offers exactly what the GP said, and that's its big selling point: Convenience. It's hassle-free, easy to use, stable and mostly bug free. It is what people want: It "just works". People are willing to pay for that. And people are willing to put up with DRM for that, even. As long as said DRM isn't going to piss them off.
What pisses people off? If your DRM gets into the way of their fun. That includes (but is by no means restricted to): Mandatory trailers you can't skip, fickle DVD copy protection where you have to insert the DVD 10 times until it works once, "don't dare to copy this" screen after DDTCT screen before what you want starts, unskipable ads before your content comes on, having to click through 20 license agreements for every episode you want to watch...
Notice a pattern? People hate it when you steal their time. Don't do that. If your DRM doesn't do that, they will accept it.
And more and more of them notice it, which results in fewer and fewer of them buying.
Instead of now learning that "Hey, people stop buying our stuff, maybe we have to adjust the contracts to win them back" the train of thought is "Hey, people stop buying our stuff, clearly they must steal it".
An old German proverb goes "The scoundrel thinks others are just the way he is himself". Guess it's applicable here.