It seems that AMD is close to breaking the Intel / Microsoft hegemony for PC designs. Witness the success of Slot A (Athlon) machines, which use a very different architecture than Pentium II/III machines, an architecture not initially designed by Intel. However, it looks like NVidia may be succeeding in taking the place of Intel. Witness DirectX 8. What originally started as an API to abstract gaming hardware, has now turned into an API designed around NVidia's next generation of video cards. This will force the other video card makers to always play catch up, being a generation behind. Sounds like the AMD of old, and sounds like a recipe for failure. Has Microsoft just selected the company to form the next monopoly, just like IBM unwittingly selected Intel & Microsoft? -- Bryan
One of the great advantages of information is that it has effectively zero marginal cost. Therefore, in order to be economically efficient, the marginal price of information should be zero.
I am not advocating that the average price of information should be zero. This would not be economically efficient either, as a system that does not compensate a producer moves the incentive to an inefficiently low position.
It is therefore my belief that any solution to the Intellectual Property issues facing society today will resolve around differential pricing.
Lots of differential pricing schemes have been tried for software: Open Source funded by initial users of the project, Shareware, Crippleware, Usable demos, "free for non-commercial use", student pricing, Microsoft's former practice of charging $5 for OEM MS-DOS and $199 for retail MS-DOS. I don't think we've figured it out yet, but we're getting closer.
My question to you, Professor Pollack, is how do you respond to my belief? Your scheme would seem to increase the marginal price of popular commercial software, and be economically harmful.
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It seems that AMD is close to breaking the Intel / Microsoft hegemony for PC designs. Witness the success of Slot A (Athlon) machines, which use a very different architecture than Pentium II/III machines, an architecture not initially designed by Intel. However, it looks like NVidia may be succeeding in taking the place of Intel. Witness DirectX 8. What originally started as an API to abstract gaming hardware, has now turned into an API designed around NVidia's next generation of video cards. This will force the other video card makers to always play catch up, being a generation behind. Sounds like the AMD of old, and sounds like a recipe for failure. Has Microsoft just selected the company to form the next monopoly, just like IBM unwittingly selected Intel & Microsoft? -- Bryan
One of the great advantages of information is that it has effectively
zero marginal cost. Therefore, in order to be economically efficient,
the marginal price of information should be zero.
I am not advocating that the average price of information should be
zero. This would not be economically efficient either, as a system
that does not compensate a producer moves the incentive to an
inefficiently low position.
It is therefore my belief that any solution to the Intellectual
Property issues facing society today will resolve around differential
pricing.
Lots of differential pricing schemes have been tried for software:
Open Source funded by initial users of the project, Shareware,
Crippleware, Usable demos, "free for non-commercial use", student
pricing, Microsoft's former practice of charging $5 for OEM MS-DOS and
$199 for retail MS-DOS. I don't think we've figured it out yet, but
we're getting closer.
My question to you, Professor Pollack, is how do you respond to my
belief? Your scheme would seem to increase the marginal price of
popular commercial software, and be economically harmful.
Thanks,
Bryan