Gotta love sense of proportion. You've got companies like Monsanto and Academi (formerly Blackwater) and a raft of multinationals polluting and doing bad stuff - but the one that causes the outrage? EA.
You want to know why politicians don't bother fixing real problems? It's because people passionately believe that EA is the worst corporate citizen.
Google is really good at coming into markets and offering a free product and in doing that sort of stymieing the development of alternatives. We can see it with what happened with the introduction of Google Reader - the introduction of a good enough free reader from Google functionally nuked the development of alternatives.
I imagine that if Microsoft had started giving away its operating systems for free back in the 90's (and finagling things so that they made their money further up the stack) there would have been less interest in Linux.
When any of the world's big companies give away something for nothing, it's worth having a closer look at what the catch is.
A lie can make its way around the world before the truth can get its boots on.
In our pre-distopia state, we're still dealing with Governments that think that blocking something is the best way to make it disappear. It won't be long though until they figure out that telling people lies that they want to believe is a far more effective way of burying the truth than redacting it.
So enjoy the dumb governments, corporations, and political groups for as long as you can - because when your generation gets into the control seat, the bullshit isn't going to smell like bullshit, it's going to look and taste like sugar or bacon (choose appropriate tasty thing)
Software development is like any other creative industry and what happened to the music industry is now happening to software development. The days where you could charge more than a couple of bucks for all but the most widely used applications are gone.
Piracy is socially normalized. It didn't matter when a small number of people did it back in the 90's, but since then we've had a generation who have grown up without there being any consequences for "not paying".
Google "Piracy Rate 1 dollar Android Apps" to see that even when people have a simple easy way to pay a small amount, they'll go out of their way to acquire the software for free.
For something to be made, there needs to be a measurable minimum viable audience. If the audience can't be measured, it doesn't count. If you're using advertising to fund the production, you've got to hit a certain number of eyeballs in a certain short period.
SyFy seemed to have hit this problem with Eureka and Stargate Universe. People were watching - but not enough to cover the costs of making it.
So while we might be getting a great variety and diversity of content - that very diversity is fragmenting the audience so much that a lot of stuff becomes financially unviable.
The Neilsen Family provided stifling homogeneity, but it also did sustain a standard of TV production that will be difficult to replicate in a future of fragmented micro-audiences.
While it's nice to speculate that the guy was fired for reasons that suit the average slashdotter's predilection's about DRM, there is no evidence that this is the case.
Article is about support for WP8 given that WP9 is coming out in a few months. And if you have a WP8 phone:
"All current Windows Phone 8 handsets will receive the next major version of the operating system."
Which is more than we can say for a substantial number of Android handsets, where the easiest way (besides rolling your own) to get the new version of Android is to buy the new phone as the vendor probably won't update the current handset.
In the past many on Slashdot argued vehemently for web standards. It's interesting that a lot of people who used to be pro-web-standard when Microsoft was non-compliant with IE are now saying "hey, we're only going to target webkit because..."
The same reasons that applied to avoiding an IE monoculture for web development apply to a webkit monoculture. Rather than bathing in schadenfreude, people should be kicking over bins just like they did with IE to ensure that the most popular implementation follows the standard, not the standard follows the most common implementation.
Google is making money on this content - and isn't giving the creators of that content a cut of the money that they are making. Put it this way - say you wrote an amazing article. I summarize it and slap advertisements on it and provide a link to your original article. Lets say that my summary of your work brings me a ten thousand bucks. Shouldn't you be entitled to a cut of that ten thousand bucks? It was your work, I just summarized it and provided a link. Or is my only obligation to you a link that may or may not provide you with revenue?
Google's Biz Model is to slap advertisements on content that other people create. Google makes a stink ton of money doing this. Just because Google has *indexed* the content doesn't some how give them the right to profit from that content (as they do) and not give the creators a cut.
Google does not want to cut the creators a share of the money that Google earns by appropriating that original content. As usual they'll scream about it "breaking the internet" - but paying creators part of the profit that Google makes from indexing the content that other people generated really does is break Google's biz model.
Agree totally. It's the same Slashdot attitude that believes dropping a bunch of OLPCs out of a helicopter onto a village does more for the village than building a well or improving sanitation.
A lot of the members I've talked to only read the ones that they were interested in of the packet. I asked about 20 people if they'd read everything - and except for 2 cases the answer was "no". In most cases they'd read 2 or so of the books.
A lot of voters don't seem to read all the novels - so a substantial number vote for what they've read and they've only read what they already know they will like.
Stuff like Game of Thrones gets made so that people sign up to HBO. If enough HBO subscribers move to streaming (which brings substantially less revenue) - good bye expensive premium content.
That's why it's not unreasonable to predict that Game of Thrones will last to the end of the saga (even though that bit hasn't been written). The production costs are simply to high and HBO won't be able to maintain its subscriber base as people move away from the Cable TV model to streaming.
The real ironic thing is that this is Slashdot, where a lot (not all) of people are happy to give away intellectual property and scream when companies fight for it.
It's ironic because intellectual property is all that a nation can create when it's offshored its manufacturing. The really hard bit, the thinky bit, the bit that requires a hyper-educated workforce is given away for free - while the hardware, bit that can be done by robots and minimum wage factory workers, is the stuff that is worth money.
The average creative isn't working as a busker - where the audience gets the entertainment and then chooses whether or not to compensate. Also buskers end up getting paid because of proximity guilt. As any creative whose provided their stuff for free on the 'net and thrown up a "tip jar" can tell you - people on the Internet don't feel proximity guilt. Long run? Creatives are working out that people expect to be entertained for free. If that's the case, they might as well be consumers as well rather than producers.
Google can jump in anytime. MSFT has said to the orgs licensing Windows Phone that if someone tries to take them to court over patent infringement, MSFT will come to court with them and will fight the suit. Why GOOG didn't offer something similar to its licensees is beyond me.
Comes down to 8% of US GDP being earned directly out of the film/TV/music/books and commercial software industries. There is also a lot of "cultural soft power" earned out of those industries. US films/TV/books and music have substantially influenced the world's attitudes about things like government, trade and a whole lot of other things. If you were a government and on one side you had people saying "yes, you can maintain that 8% of GDP by giving it all away for free" and the other side saying "piracy is killing our revenue" - what would your rational course of action be?
Slashdot Mirror
Gotta love sense of proportion. You've got companies like Monsanto and Academi (formerly Blackwater) and a raft of multinationals polluting and doing bad stuff - but the one that causes the outrage? EA. You want to know why politicians don't bother fixing real problems? It's because people passionately believe that EA is the worst corporate citizen.
Google is really good at coming into markets and offering a free product and in doing that sort of stymieing the development of alternatives. We can see it with what happened with the introduction of Google Reader - the introduction of a good enough free reader from Google functionally nuked the development of alternatives. I imagine that if Microsoft had started giving away its operating systems for free back in the 90's (and finagling things so that they made their money further up the stack) there would have been less interest in Linux. When any of the world's big companies give away something for nothing, it's worth having a closer look at what the catch is.
A lie can make its way around the world before the truth can get its boots on. In our pre-distopia state, we're still dealing with Governments that think that blocking something is the best way to make it disappear. It won't be long though until they figure out that telling people lies that they want to believe is a far more effective way of burying the truth than redacting it. So enjoy the dumb governments, corporations, and political groups for as long as you can - because when your generation gets into the control seat, the bullshit isn't going to smell like bullshit, it's going to look and taste like sugar or bacon (choose appropriate tasty thing)
Software development is like any other creative industry and what happened to the music industry is now happening to software development. The days where you could charge more than a couple of bucks for all but the most widely used applications are gone.
Redigi's business model relies upon making copies. The Thai bloke was importing copies. He wasn't making copies.
Piracy is socially normalized. It didn't matter when a small number of people did it back in the 90's, but since then we've had a generation who have grown up without there being any consequences for "not paying". Google "Piracy Rate 1 dollar Android Apps" to see that even when people have a simple easy way to pay a small amount, they'll go out of their way to acquire the software for free.
For something to be made, there needs to be a measurable minimum viable audience. If the audience can't be measured, it doesn't count. If you're using advertising to fund the production, you've got to hit a certain number of eyeballs in a certain short period. SyFy seemed to have hit this problem with Eureka and Stargate Universe. People were watching - but not enough to cover the costs of making it. So while we might be getting a great variety and diversity of content - that very diversity is fragmenting the audience so much that a lot of stuff becomes financially unviable. The Neilsen Family provided stifling homogeneity, but it also did sustain a standard of TV production that will be difficult to replicate in a future of fragmented micro-audiences.
While it's nice to speculate that the guy was fired for reasons that suit the average slashdotter's predilection's about DRM, there is no evidence that this is the case.
Article is about support for WP8 given that WP9 is coming out in a few months. And if you have a WP8 phone: "All current Windows Phone 8 handsets will receive the next major version of the operating system." Which is more than we can say for a substantial number of Android handsets, where the easiest way (besides rolling your own) to get the new version of Android is to buy the new phone as the vendor probably won't update the current handset.
At least we know why they gave Android away for free - it was so they would have a route to shove mobile advertisements down our throats.
Refugees are already saying that http://theoldreader.com/ is the replacement.
JAVA - Just Another Vulnerability Alert
In the past many on Slashdot argued vehemently for web standards. It's interesting that a lot of people who used to be pro-web-standard when Microsoft was non-compliant with IE are now saying "hey, we're only going to target webkit because ..."
The same reasons that applied to avoiding an IE monoculture for web development apply to a webkit monoculture. Rather than bathing in schadenfreude, people should be kicking over bins just like they did with IE to ensure that the most popular implementation follows the standard, not the standard follows the most common implementation.
Google is making money on this content - and isn't giving the creators of that content a cut of the money that they are making. Put it this way - say you wrote an amazing article. I summarize it and slap advertisements on it and provide a link to your original article. Lets say that my summary of your work brings me a ten thousand bucks. Shouldn't you be entitled to a cut of that ten thousand bucks? It was your work, I just summarized it and provided a link. Or is my only obligation to you a link that may or may not provide you with revenue?
Google's Biz Model is to slap advertisements on content that other people create. Google makes a stink ton of money doing this. Just because Google has *indexed* the content doesn't some how give them the right to profit from that content (as they do) and not give the creators a cut. Google does not want to cut the creators a share of the money that Google earns by appropriating that original content. As usual they'll scream about it "breaking the internet" - but paying creators part of the profit that Google makes from indexing the content that other people generated really does is break Google's biz model.
Agree totally. It's the same Slashdot attitude that believes dropping a bunch of OLPCs out of a helicopter onto a village does more for the village than building a well or improving sanitation.
A lot of the members I've talked to only read the ones that they were interested in of the packet. I asked about 20 people if they'd read everything - and except for 2 cases the answer was "no". In most cases they'd read 2 or so of the books.
A lot of voters don't seem to read all the novels - so a substantial number vote for what they've read and they've only read what they already know they will like.
Stuff like Game of Thrones gets made so that people sign up to HBO. If enough HBO subscribers move to streaming (which brings substantially less revenue) - good bye expensive premium content. That's why it's not unreasonable to predict that Game of Thrones will last to the end of the saga (even though that bit hasn't been written). The production costs are simply to high and HBO won't be able to maintain its subscriber base as people move away from the Cable TV model to streaming.
I'm confused. I thought piracy never hurt anyone. How could someone go out of business because of it? Stupid cognitive dissonance!
Hasn't been proven at all. As a lot of ebook authors have found out - lower the price, more sales but same profit as less sales at a higher price.
The real ironic thing is that this is Slashdot, where a lot (not all) of people are happy to give away intellectual property and scream when companies fight for it.
It's ironic because intellectual property is all that a nation can create when it's offshored its manufacturing. The really hard bit, the thinky bit, the bit that requires a hyper-educated workforce is given away for free - while the hardware, bit that can be done by robots and minimum wage factory workers, is the stuff that is worth money.
The average creative isn't working as a busker - where the audience gets the entertainment and then chooses whether or not to compensate. Also buskers end up getting paid because of proximity guilt. As any creative whose provided their stuff for free on the 'net and thrown up a "tip jar" can tell you - people on the Internet don't feel proximity guilt. Long run? Creatives are working out that people expect to be entertained for free. If that's the case, they might as well be consumers as well rather than producers.
Google can jump in anytime. MSFT has said to the orgs licensing Windows Phone that if someone tries to take them to court over patent infringement, MSFT will come to court with them and will fight the suit. Why GOOG didn't offer something similar to its licensees is beyond me.
Comes down to 8% of US GDP being earned directly out of the film/TV/music/books and commercial software industries. There is also a lot of "cultural soft power" earned out of those industries. US films/TV/books and music have substantially influenced the world's attitudes about things like government, trade and a whole lot of other things. If you were a government and on one side you had people saying "yes, you can maintain that 8% of GDP by giving it all away for free" and the other side saying "piracy is killing our revenue" - what would your rational course of action be?