Your question sounds rhetorical, so I imagine you do not believe that you are getting good value for your taxes (something you rather hilariously express on the Internet...). I for one feel I get plenty of value. I am not a person living alone on an island in international waters, with no contact with the outside world.
My home, by which I mean both the nation of which I am a citizen and the actual house that I live in, is under precisely zero threat of invasion and occupation by foreign armies. I pay people to ensure this, though I’ve never written a check directly. When those people retire, or are hurt in the line of duty, or are killed and leave families behind, I continue to pay them and I’m happy to do so. It seems like the right thing to do, since they do so much for me.
Every day I travel to a workplace that pays me reasonably well, and I do so either by train or on well-maintained and fairly safe roads. My money goes pretty far because goods are cheap, in large part because they can be made or grown wherever it is most efficient to produce them, then driven in big trucks on different but similar roads to a place where it’s convenient for me to purchase them. They don’t grow oranges in my state, but I get them fresh all the same.
More of my money goes to the purchase and maintenance of my home. My home’s value (both in intangibles and in the monetary possibility of resale) is increased by the proximity of a public park, good nearby elementary schools, a low crime rate, and the fact that my trash, yard waste, and recycling magically disappear once a week as long as I set them out by the curb. The same is true for the rest of my household waste, if you get my meaning. Most of all, though, the value is increased by the security of knowing that somebody can’t just enter my home when I’m there, board up the entrances, and refuse to leave. Somebody *could*, I suppose, but there’d be hell to pay, and I wouldn’t have to risk my own life to make them pay it.
There are schools operating in my neighborhood. At the very least they keep children from running amok during the day, when I’m at work and can’t stop them from climbing my tree. Hopefully they’re actually educating and preparing the children for useful lives as citizens. Some will move away as adults but many won’t, and I will benefit from a new generation of shopkeepers, firefighters, artists, chefs, dentists, mechanics, and the like.
I of course have neighbors. Some are better off than I am, but most are not. I like most of them. I like how their kids get an education even if the parents can’t afford private-school tuition. I like knowing that if one of those kids got hurt playing, they could go to the hospital and get treatment. Nobody would refuse it because their parent is poor, and nobody will knock on my door asking me to contribute. It’s just taken care of, as if by magic.
Some years ago I lost my job. For several months I got a check from the state for half of what my salary had been, until I found a new job. It wasn’t much to live on, but it let me keep my house and food on the table. I didn’t feel too bad taking it, either, because I’d spent a decade before (and I’ve spent a decade since) paying into the fund from which I briefly drew.
There are woods near my house. Somebody might have bought them and turned them into parking lots, except that they’re not for sale. Instead they’re kept available for me to walk my dog, or ride my bike. Some people ride horses or ATVs around in them, and that looks like fun too. I don’t pay for a ticket to go in, nor does anybody else.
These are the benefits of civilization. They cost money. My taxes are that money. Quit whining.
Your basic point about perceived value is not entirely wrong, but you've chosen some examples that are either terrible or irrelevant:
The price of a product is defined mostly by its perceived value, not by its production costs.
That is why diamonds are so expensive.
The supply of diamonds is artificially controlled. So while a certain amount of their value is doubtless due to perceived value (everybody knows mined diamonds are worth so much more than perfect industrial diamonds), that gap would narrow considerably if everything that could be mined was dropped straight onto the open market.
That is why paintings cost so much.
Paintings, as I suspect you mean them, are unique - theirs is not an artificial scarcity. Simple supply-and-demand is enough to explain the value of a given van Gogh when there's only one of it. So that's a good example of perceived value, but it has very little to do with a discussion of digital media, which is about as un-unique as you can get. In digital media the product is not the entire work of art, like it would be if you bought Starry Night. You're not paying for the work in every form in which it can exist everywhere...you're paying for a copy of it, and in a fair legal system that would mean you got to use that copy in your car and in your house and, hell, maybe even listen to it at the same time your wife is doing so.
That is why certain areas like Beverly Hills is so expensive.
Not really. I mean yeah, partially, there's cachet and all, but you're buying a lot of things when you buy expensive property: proximity to desirable resources, probably a really nice house, presumed safety and security, the not-entirely-intangible benefits of living in a prime ZIP code, and a virtual guarantee that you will one day be able to sell the place at a profit unless you buy at the top of a bubble. And as with paintings, as the old saw goes, they're not making any more land (except in Chiba).
And that is why digitial products have a price far above zero.
No, their price is far above zero because the content owners still haven't figured out that selling at a price the market will bear will actually increase sales. iTunes and Amazon proved the "perceived value" of songs pretty damn well. As soon as there was competition in that marketplace, songs were 99 cents (and DRM-free). Why? Because that's what people would pay for them in large numbers. Make them more expensive and fewer people buy them and the content owner loses money. I'm not a big laissez-faire guy, but the free market handled that one pretty well. As evil as the RIAA is, at least they learned that lesson. The MPAA still hasn't, which is why you still can't buy a reasonably-priced digital copy of a movie.
I want to buy them, guys...sell them to me for less than it costs to buy the 4-disc megaset with the "free" digital copy included and I will do so. I don't pirate...I just don't buy movies. Make them $5 and I will, and I doubt I'm alone in that rational economic assessment.
The online grant applications at grants.gov are famous for this. They require Adobe Reader/Acrobat of a specific version and point revision. Worst of all, said version is usually but not always the latest version, so if you're aggressive about pushing security updates to the end users who actually need the Adobe product (and with Adobe software you need to be) you can actually end up having too recent a version.
Odd analogy sicne the TSA is not any form of law enforcement, nor an org. of policemen or deputy sheriffs.
It's not odd at all; it's quite apt. The TSA may not technically be a law-enforcement agency but its agents can do things like search you, restrict your movements, and other things that most people associate with LEOs.
I don't actually agree with the parent here, but the point he's trying to make is pretty clear: rent-a-cop:local cop as private airport security:TSA agent. He could have said "private airport security:TSA agent as market research agency employee:Census Bureau employee" instead, but then you might have written "Odd analogy, since the TSA never asks you about your line of work and how much time you spend commuting".
An analogy doesn't have to be perfect in every possible point of comparison - that's what makes it an analogy.
The FBI got all up in Wikipedia's business about including an image of the FBI seal in articles about the FBI and, well, the FBI seal itself.
Any issues I may have with the Foundation notwithstanding, this led to a very pointed reply/civics lesson/bitchslap from their general counsel.
Choice quote: "Entertainingly, in support for your argument, you included a version of 701 in which
you removed the very phrases that subject the statute to ejusdem generis analysis. While we
appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that
we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version of Section
701 that you forwarded to us. "
Slashdot Mirror
My home, by which I mean both the nation of which I am a citizen and the actual house that I live in, is under precisely zero threat of invasion and occupation by foreign armies. I pay people to ensure this, though I’ve never written a check directly. When those people retire, or are hurt in the line of duty, or are killed and leave families behind, I continue to pay them and I’m happy to do so. It seems like the right thing to do, since they do so much for me.
Every day I travel to a workplace that pays me reasonably well, and I do so either by train or on well-maintained and fairly safe roads. My money goes pretty far because goods are cheap, in large part because they can be made or grown wherever it is most efficient to produce them, then driven in big trucks on different but similar roads to a place where it’s convenient for me to purchase them. They don’t grow oranges in my state, but I get them fresh all the same.
More of my money goes to the purchase and maintenance of my home. My home’s value (both in intangibles and in the monetary possibility of resale) is increased by the proximity of a public park, good nearby elementary schools, a low crime rate, and the fact that my trash, yard waste, and recycling magically disappear once a week as long as I set them out by the curb. The same is true for the rest of my household waste, if you get my meaning. Most of all, though, the value is increased by the security of knowing that somebody can’t just enter my home when I’m there, board up the entrances, and refuse to leave. Somebody *could*, I suppose, but there’d be hell to pay, and I wouldn’t have to risk my own life to make them pay it.
There are schools operating in my neighborhood. At the very least they keep children from running amok during the day, when I’m at work and can’t stop them from climbing my tree. Hopefully they’re actually educating and preparing the children for useful lives as citizens. Some will move away as adults but many won’t, and I will benefit from a new generation of shopkeepers, firefighters, artists, chefs, dentists, mechanics, and the like.
I of course have neighbors. Some are better off than I am, but most are not. I like most of them. I like how their kids get an education even if the parents can’t afford private-school tuition. I like knowing that if one of those kids got hurt playing, they could go to the hospital and get treatment. Nobody would refuse it because their parent is poor, and nobody will knock on my door asking me to contribute. It’s just taken care of, as if by magic.
Some years ago I lost my job. For several months I got a check from the state for half of what my salary had been, until I found a new job. It wasn’t much to live on, but it let me keep my house and food on the table. I didn’t feel too bad taking it, either, because I’d spent a decade before (and I’ve spent a decade since) paying into the fund from which I briefly drew.
There are woods near my house. Somebody might have bought them and turned them into parking lots, except that they’re not for sale. Instead they’re kept available for me to walk my dog, or ride my bike. Some people ride horses or ATVs around in them, and that looks like fun too. I don’t pay for a ticket to go in, nor does anybody else.
These are the benefits of civilization. They cost money. My taxes are that money. Quit whining.
... after all- when the Welsh were coming up with names for their villages they used random letter generating apps on their iDruids.
The Welsh use Andruids.
Everybody knows the Welsh prefer Andruid devices.
Your basic point about perceived value is not entirely wrong, but you've chosen some examples that are either terrible or irrelevant:
The price of a product is defined mostly by its perceived value, not by its production costs. That is why diamonds are so expensive.
The supply of diamonds is artificially controlled. So while a certain amount of their value is doubtless due to perceived value (everybody knows mined diamonds are worth so much more than perfect industrial diamonds), that gap would narrow considerably if everything that could be mined was dropped straight onto the open market.
That is why paintings cost so much.
Paintings, as I suspect you mean them, are unique - theirs is not an artificial scarcity. Simple supply-and-demand is enough to explain the value of a given van Gogh when there's only one of it. So that's a good example of perceived value, but it has very little to do with a discussion of digital media, which is about as un-unique as you can get. In digital media the product is not the entire work of art, like it would be if you bought Starry Night. You're not paying for the work in every form in which it can exist everywhere...you're paying for a copy of it, and in a fair legal system that would mean you got to use that copy in your car and in your house and, hell, maybe even listen to it at the same time your wife is doing so.
That is why certain areas like Beverly Hills is so expensive.
Not really. I mean yeah, partially, there's cachet and all, but you're buying a lot of things when you buy expensive property: proximity to desirable resources, probably a really nice house, presumed safety and security, the not-entirely-intangible benefits of living in a prime ZIP code, and a virtual guarantee that you will one day be able to sell the place at a profit unless you buy at the top of a bubble. And as with paintings, as the old saw goes, they're not making any more land (except in Chiba).
And that is why digitial products have a price far above zero.
No, their price is far above zero because the content owners still haven't figured out that selling at a price the market will bear will actually increase sales. iTunes and Amazon proved the "perceived value" of songs pretty damn well. As soon as there was competition in that marketplace, songs were 99 cents (and DRM-free). Why? Because that's what people would pay for them in large numbers. Make them more expensive and fewer people buy them and the content owner loses money. I'm not a big laissez-faire guy, but the free market handled that one pretty well. As evil as the RIAA is, at least they learned that lesson. The MPAA still hasn't, which is why you still can't buy a reasonably-priced digital copy of a movie.
I want to buy them, guys...sell them to me for less than it costs to buy the 4-disc megaset with the "free" digital copy included and I will do so. I don't pirate...I just don't buy movies. Make them $5 and I will, and I doubt I'm alone in that rational economic assessment.
The online grant applications at grants.gov are famous for this. They require Adobe Reader/Acrobat of a specific version and point revision. Worst of all, said version is usually but not always the latest version, so if you're aggressive about pushing security updates to the end users who actually need the Adobe product (and with Adobe software you need to be) you can actually end up having too recent a version.
Odd analogy sicne the TSA is not any form of law enforcement, nor an org. of policemen or deputy sheriffs.
It's not odd at all; it's quite apt. The TSA may not technically be a law-enforcement agency but its agents can do things like search you, restrict your movements, and other things that most people associate with LEOs. I don't actually agree with the parent here, but the point he's trying to make is pretty clear: rent-a-cop:local cop as private airport security:TSA agent. He could have said "private airport security:TSA agent as market research agency employee:Census Bureau employee" instead, but then you might have written "Odd analogy, since the TSA never asks you about your line of work and how much time you spend commuting". An analogy doesn't have to be perfect in every possible point of comparison - that's what makes it an analogy.
You may be thinking of Randall Munroe. So I finally get to say "Obligatory xkcd link" on /.
The FBI got all up in Wikipedia's business about including an image of the FBI seal in articles about the FBI and, well, the FBI seal itself.
Any issues I may have with the Foundation notwithstanding, this led to a very pointed reply/civics lesson/bitchslap from their general counsel.
Choice quote: "Entertainingly, in support for your argument, you included a version of 701 in which you removed the very phrases that subject the statute to ejusdem generis analysis. While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version of Section 701 that you forwarded to us. "