What's the point? I thought it quite obvious -- it's been said several times now. If Ubuntu makes up the vast majority of linux users, and Ubuntu has crappy QA, then that says something about the general linux experience. True, a criticism of Ubuntu may or may not apply to slack, but I think Ubuntu--as the main representative of linux!--represents a lot of linux users' experiences.
Well, Windows is even more popular than Ubuntu, by an order of magnitude; it's even the most popular OS over there. Should we conclude that Windows represents all OS producers' love for quality assurance?
I don't think that's germane.
Regarding what it's been talked here, they are as much representative as Ubuntu: nothing, that is
Disagree. The gp DID attribute a lack of QA to both Ubuntu AND linux in general. The point made was a distinction between commercial and non-commercial projects. That point can be argued--I don't actually agree with the point. FreeBSD (or perhaps even more so, OpenBSD) for instance is an example of projects which go to GREAT lengths for QA.
Anyway, the gp asking why ubuntu and "linux distros" don't go to the same lengths in terms of QA is not disproven by saying "Ubuntu != all distros." Additionally, any linux distro is genetically more similar to another than to Mac or Windows. w
Ubuntu not hardly representative of all linux distros? Maybe not, but it IS by all accounts I can find, far and away the most popular (even more so if you included Ubuntu-derived distros)
If Ubuntu is not representative, then gentoo, slackware, etc are even more unrepresentative of linux distros as a whole, no?
Gates was a big fish in a small pond back in the day. Try reading the code of that BASIC interpreter. BG can't hold a candle to Woz or Chuck Moore or Dennis Ritchie.
How many people of that era CAN hold a candle to them?
If there is no evidence, how can you convince me to be concerned?
What more evidence do you need? We know that the current flu is a strain of h1n1. We know that in the past h1n1 has become a major global epidemic killing millions of people. We know that already--early in the outbreak--h1n1 has disproportionately affected people < 25 years old, overweight people, and pregnant women (2 of these demographics I would think are highly represented on slashdot!). We know that there has been a higher mortality rate (again, before flu season ever has started) for h1n1 than the typical seasonal flu. We believe that in the last big h1n1 outbreak, mortality may have reached 10% (if you know otherwise, please link).
We also know that refusal to get vaccinated leads to faster spreading viruses and greater mutation rates--this is not specific to h1n1. You are a perfect example of the freerider problem of herd immunity.
What evidence to you need? Your argument is fallacious because you reduce it down to "well, if I can't know the EXACT probability then it's not a threat." That sort of reasoning doesn't work anywhere in life. Probabilities are great when analyzing hindsight.
just out of curiosity--at what mortality rate would you get a vaccine? 1%? 5%? 10%? if you got the flu, how many people on average would you have to infect before you got vaccinated? 1? 3? 10? i.e., what I'm getting at is, you keep asking for exact probabilities--what are you threshholds?
And that's all I need to not only rule out getting this vaccine, but countless other simple, cheap, but *unnecessary* medical treatments.
It's always odd to me how even on a generally well informed site such as slashdot, that anti-vaccine people regularly come out of the woodworks. Are you vaccinated for measles or mumps?
Well that's rather ludicrous--you're asking for probabilities that can't be known. We can learn these things in hindsight. Like I said, we don't have crystalballs, all we have are guesses.
Perhaps the most telling part of this conversation is that you STILL have not come up with a reason to not get vaccinated beyond "I don't want to."
I'm not sure, what do you think? [re: mortality rate]
Well, from my best googling, it seems as if with treatment the mortality rate for children with measles ranges around 2%. Without treatment, ~20%. The rate seems similar with other infections such as rubella. Smallpox had about a 30% fatality rate.
Given that in the midst (or before) a pandemic we can't know the mortality rate, we can only look at past events. Your prevailing attitude seems to be that the flu isn't a big deal. Most years this is true. One only needs to look back over the 75 years to see how normal strains of flu can instantly become major killers.
Given that you have not come up with a single reason to not get vaccinated other than the fact that you don't want to, what's the downside?
Again, without numbers this is an arbitrary claim
What, you're claiming that the flu CAN'T become an epidemic? Just look at 1918. Or 1968. Etc. If doctors and epidemiologists could predict with 100% accuracy which strains or diseases were going to become major killers years in advance, we'd be a lot better off! Unfortunately, all we have is guesses.
Your analogy would only be valid if you could show that the probability of getting/spreading H1N1 is equivalent or even on the order of the probability of drunk driving causing an accident. Since determining this equivalence would require knowing the number for which I originally asked, it would probably be easier for you to simply provide the number for which I originally asked.
Ok, so then quantify it--at what point does a disease require mandatory vaccination?
With regards to your question--you're asking what the probability is that an infected person will pass on the flu? That's rather situation dependent! Is there a particular way you're looking for it to be quantified?
Then clearly it is in their interest to get such a vaccine - provided, of course, that you show the probability is relatively high of getting it, or at least that the probability is rapidly increasing. It's still of no concern to me, though.
You're lucky then that you're not < 25 years of age, pregnant, or obese as those are the groups that are so far primarily affected. The more people that are infected, the greater the risk of more virulent mutations.
Putting your interests above others is not insane. We're not talking about a plague here, so please stop fearmongering.
Again I ask, WHY do you think the vaccine is not in your best interest? The flu absolutely CAN be a major epidemic (definition of plague?).
Yes, as I said in my other post, I see no problem with people getting diseases if they choose (or choose not to protect themselves). The problem is when their actions cause a deleterious effect on others, as you point out.
In reality though, you can't sue another for getting infected -- other than perhaps those occasional cases of people who knowingly and intentionally infect their partners with AIDS.
Nobody is talking about forcing the entire population to get vaccinated. What kind of forced vaccinations are being discussed are those people who pose an immediate danger of infecting AND killing or seriously injuring others. Doctors and nurses who work with pregnant women, children, teenagers and twenty-somethings, etc. Their not getting vaccinated is a clear and present danger to their patients.
Do you know if it's possible to simulate open directory on linux(etc)?
I work in a mixed environment too, with a Samba domain server for the PCs and no directory services for the Macs. Would like to unify the two if I could.
While an over-simplified and bit off version of Objectivism, you make a good point. Nobody would care about making people get forced vaccination if getting influenza or any other infectious disease affected ONLY the infected. But the problem is, whenever someone chooses not to be protected, they themselves can become carriers and infect others.
It's a grey situation in that it's a convergence of rights. The individual right to control their own bodies vs OTHER inidividuals' right (group) not to be subjected to your germs.
You have the right to have a gun. You don't have the right to go around randomly shooting and hoping nobody gets hit. Obviously the flu is not a direct analogy, but it's the closest I can think of right now.
Again, even if I had it, there is only a probability of it being spread to others. Has anyone figured this number out?
And if you drive drunk there's only a probability of an accident occurring. Are you really arguing against the epidemiologists here?
Putting your interests above others is not insane. We're not talking about a plague here, so please stop fearmongering
So to make this statement, you clearly must believe that it is in YOUR interest to not get a vaccine. Why?
Even if you get sick but are fine, you are still contagious. Certain groups--pregnant women, children, elderly, etc--are in general more susceptible to influenza, and certain groups react differently to h1n1 than other flu strains. The more people who are suspectible to the flu, the more it spreads and the more it can mutate.
To be quite frank, your statement that "We're not talking about a plague here" is very foolish. You're no doubt living in an advanced country with high standards of medicine, but influenza (as it mutates) has the potential to kill millions of people. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_pandemic. Will swine become a huge killer? We don't know. What we DO know is that as more people are vaccinated, less people die.
Ok, so where do you draw the line? None of bubonic plague, polio, smallpox, measles, etc kill in 100% of cases and have widely varying mortality / serious effects rate.
At what mortality point is a vaccine a a good idea? If swine flu has a 5% mortality rate, should it be vaccinated against? What about 5% mortality rate amongst certain demographics--should they be vaccinated? 1%?
Using the phrase "you don't have any idea what you're talking about" then not addressing why and going on to argue points that have nothing to do with my post is what I was talking about.
I've tried to be patient here but this is ridiculous. I cannot be any more explicit in what I'm saying. I've pointed out instance after instance where your assumptions are faulty and factually wrong. I responded to your initial post in detailed points and you move the conversation to a long (and non-specific rant) about the future of the industry. You accuse me of believing the opposite of what I clearly write (see my last post), etc--I don't understand what you're looking for in this conversation? Is there a SINGLE point of yours I haven't addressed? If you will put (e.g.) one unanswered question per line, I will absolutely do my best to address them one by one! You claim I'm not addressing your points--as they say, put up or shut up--what am I not addressing?
What I was trying to communicate in my last post wasn't some whining about you doing it but trying to make you aware that it was hurting your ability to discuss a topic with any real eye toward honest debate in which you're able to both teach and learn rather than just scoring points here and there like some sort of pseudo political debate
I hate to say this, but--get over it. I was rude in the first sentence of the first post, and have since replied to you in depth with hundreds of additional words. You can stop playing the aggrieved party now, as I said before, it gets tiresome.
If you can't stand being told that "You are factually wrong," and equate that with "someone who shouts "you're wrong stupid head" over and over" then I really don't think there's much more to say in this discussion? There's a BIG difference between ad hominem attacks and saying that you are wrong. It's not at all semantics.
Given that I have no qualms with your description of the current royalty system I would be more interested in what you think the changing market will bring because I think the big success will be for first guys to crack what that new model is. Any ideas?
I don't think anybody can know this. I think several things will happen.
- As has happened across all societies internationally, BRANDING is going to be key. Thus publishers will perhaps play a lesser role in the number of actions they perform (and are of less utility) but the branding of books is a big deal. Look at O'Reilly as somewhat of an early example of this. We see this today as various imprints remain important and prominent, even when owned by the same mega-corps. I think you'll see this extending further.
- Google/Amazon/B&N/etc on-demand printing. Has the potential to eliminate warehouse stock. We're not nearly there yet--on-demand printing still looks junky, is inferior in terms of physical quality and still far more expensive than being able to print larger quantities of a book. I don't know how long it will take, but I think it's clear that on-demand printing will remedy many of these problems in the future.
- What I honestly DON'T see (at least I don't see how yet) is authors making substantially more money than they do today. Even if publishers are eliminated (a real possibility!), the bookstores and booksellers (itunes, kindle store, etc) and book printers (traditional, on-demand), etc will remain middle-men. As I've written several times, Amazon takes a HUGE chunk of all kindle sales. I don't see this changing at all.
- I don't think I see the future being friendlier to small publishers. Again, much like we've seen elsewhere, I think the big corporations will continue to gain ground and market share. I don't see small companies going away, but look at it like this--many companies can make books, this has been true for decades. Once the book was printed, all publishers were equal. Now potential authors can judge publishers not just by the books they produce, but by we
You would think e-books would be a lot cheaper, but from what I've seen, they aren't.
You would, and I think ebook prices WILL fall. Part of the issue here is that when a publisher sells a book to a bookstore, a wholesaler, or Amazon, they sell the book at an average range of 10%-50% discount.
When Amazon sells an ebook, they typically give the publisher (or author) less than 50% of the sale price. Ebook is sold for $10, the publisher maybe gets $4.
Few books are sold as ebook ONLY, and publishers really don't make that much MORE (less?) off of ebooks, and don't want to cannibalize sales. Ultimately I think in many fields ebooks will become the primary sellers, but we're not there yet.
You're pretty much right for large publishers, but it absolutely depends on the book (length, size, color?, cover type, binding type) and print run size. For instance if you have a 200 page monograph, no color photos, 2-3 color cover, you can easily reach that $1-$3 (or less) unit price with even a small print run (1000 copies?).
On the other hand, an 900 page textbook--no color, plain cover, 2000 copy print run last year cost the publisher i work for upwards of $8/copy. That's just for the printing costs and does not include shipping, warehousing, or the production costs.
The Frankfurt Book Fair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Book_Fair) is an ancient and massive trade fair. Today it's largely a place where publishers get together to work out trade deals. For instance if a German author+publisher wants his book translated and sold in the states. Tons of business generated here.
Secondly, from the sound of the D.S. article, the survey was commissioned BY the Fair, not taken of random browsers AT the fair. Could still be biased, but I don't see what they would gain? The fair is about business.
Second, I don't think that just because there are options to day it means the publishing industry has changed all it will. In fact I believe (though I don't think you do) that more changes are coming and that presses who attempt to keep operating the way they are currently are likely to have issues despite the fact that it already has changed to a great degree.
Let me refer you back to what I wrote earlier:
I will say one thing I agree with you on--no industry--be it banking, newspapers, automakers, or publishers DESERVES to survive merely because it did at some point in the past. Everybody must change to survive. The publishing industry in the last 30 years has gone through many major changes and consolidations and new companies emerging. This will no doubt continue (and even accelerate) in the future. Publishers will have to find ways to change or they will go out of business, just as they have changed in the past.
Is that at all at odds with what you're saying? Do you REALLY believe that I don't think the publishing industry will change? To be clear then--I think there are MAJOR changes en route and many companies WILL go out of business.
Finally, I don't think the finances you mention do anything except explain how a royalty is calculated today. I don't think you'll see publishers operating the same as they do today. I also think the cost structure will change significantly at some point as books are not printed on presses at some central location but rather in bookstores themselves which eliminates warehousing, transportation, etc. This will greatly change what the significant cost factors are and the pay and services structure will have to change to match the new reality in which I BELIEVE the author will have more power than the press.
Exactly -- I tried to be very explicit that I was describing why royalties are the way they are. Nothing to do with the future of the industry, etc. I'm repeating myself here. You will get absolutely no argument from me that there WILL be major changes in publishing. I've mentioned on-demand printing in just about every one of my replies to you!
One thing to keep in mind -- I'm under an NDA with Amazon so I can't get into details, but when we sell a kindle ebook we get roughly 50% of the ebook price. $10 ebook, amazon takes half, we take half. I believe we get better terms than (at least most) individual authors. You better believe that once Amazon (or google) starts doing on-demand printing or B&N does in the their stores, etc, that the terms are not going to be better for authors.
Do you see a shift from the purchasing side away from Borders/B&N/Amazon/Google/(and maybe Apple)? I don't think I do...
I'd urge you to go back and read my first post. At no point did I call the royalties unreasonably low. At no point did I argue that publishers should or could pay 40% royalties. Someone else asked why they didn't I said "because they don't have to" implying that they were currently the scarcer of the two resources between writers and presses.
Ok, I guess I don't understand then. It seems to me that claiming that publishers COULD pay higher royalties if they wanted to (because if "they don't have to", then they obviously could if they wanted to?) and that the reason they don't have to is because of "industry standard practice" and market barriers that artificially limit competition sounds exactly like saying that royalties are too low. Is that an unfair interpretation?
I think the fact that you work in the industry may have blinded you to what I'm actually arguing. You seem dead determined to let us know that publishers are all doing the right thing and are at the mercy of economics beyond their control. I don't disagree or even care. That wasn't the point of my post. If you don't think the industry will change then great, continue to o
Anytime you open with that and stand by it you're not looking for a conversation you're looking for an argument.
And anytime you enter into a conversation where it's clear -- and remains clear two posts in -- that you don't know much about the industry you're talking about and speak only in overly broad generalization, you're looking for... ?
Then it's hardly applicable to the whole field of publishing.
Let me be clear since I apparently wasn't in the past post. In the academic publishing subject area I work in today there are 3 big corporations (not including their various labels), 1 small/medium, and a handful of new smalls. 30 years ago there were maybe a dozen fairly well known companies. THAT'S what is specifically applicable to the area I work in. As I attempted to explain to you later, there are all levels of publishers from big corporations to startups to self-publishing houses, etc. That's the point I was trying to make.
First $10,000 isn't bearable for the average writer. Just because you or I could pay it doesn't mean the majority of writers could. Second just getting the book printed is not the same value proposition as publishing with the promotion and distribution channels that come with a real publisher. But it is getting closer, hence my point about this situation will not last forever.
Who knows--I can tell you that a lot of people DO pay significant amounts of money to have their books published. Since I gather you're not familiar with them, there's a whole part of the publishing business called vanity presses. If you've ever read Umberto Ecco's book Foucault's Pendulum, the publishing house in that book is a (somewhat over the top) vanity press.
People can self-publish or pick more barebones publishers TODAY, there's no waiting or "just around the corner about it," so I'm unclear what changes you are waiting for?
You rightly make the point that there is a difference in service levels. This seems unlikely to change?
Competition is better than it used to be and it will get batter to the point that the middle man will slowly disappear or take on a very different role.
As I have argued twice now, there's a huge amount of competition already, from company size to amount of service to the fact that some publishers pay YOU, while YOU pay others.
This is just kind of a random rant so I'm not sure how modern victim mentality or helplessness (I assume this is what you mean but I could be wrong) and the rise of the middle man are related
You're right, it's mostly tangential -- there's no perfect example of the middleman in my opinion than the REALTOR (and an example of how governments can force the usage of middlemen to the detriment of everybody else). People no longer do many things that they used to.
Publishing has been one such market. I believe that is changing and publishing will have to change it's nature and instead sell services related to publishing rather than be the gatekeeper to the market that they have been and currently are. Eventually all the things you mention (i.e. digital distribution, print-on-demand, major etc) will make the publishing and promotional part the least valuable portion of the business and the publishers will have to change what they offer to survive. What is that? I'm not sure, perhaps editing services, art creation services, maybe they all become the print on demand sellers. The point is they will sell cheaper things to more people rather than selling a risk management service wherein they take on the financial risk of publishing and distributing a book. This is because as the industry changes that risk is going down so that middle man value is also going down.
It's when you start offering opinions like this that your lack of experience or knowledge of the publishing industry becomes problematic, and the strokes b
Slashdot Mirror
What's the point? I thought it quite obvious -- it's been said several times now. If Ubuntu makes up the vast majority of linux users, and Ubuntu has crappy QA, then that says something about the general linux experience. True, a criticism of Ubuntu may or may not apply to slack, but I think Ubuntu--as the main representative of linux!--represents a lot of linux users' experiences.
Well, Windows is even more popular than Ubuntu, by an order of magnitude; it's even the most popular OS over there. Should we conclude that Windows represents all OS producers' love for quality assurance?
I don't think that's germane.
Regarding what it's been talked here, they are as much representative as Ubuntu: nothing, that is
Disagree. The gp DID attribute a lack of QA to both Ubuntu AND linux in general. The point made was a distinction between commercial and non-commercial projects. That point can be argued--I don't actually agree with the point. FreeBSD (or perhaps even more so, OpenBSD) for instance is an example of projects which go to GREAT lengths for QA.
Anyway, the gp asking why ubuntu and "linux distros" don't go to the same lengths in terms of QA is not disproven by saying "Ubuntu != all distros." Additionally, any linux distro is genetically more similar to another than to Mac or Windows. w
Ubuntu not hardly representative of all linux distros? Maybe not, but it IS by all accounts I can find, far and away the most popular (even more so if you included Ubuntu-derived distros)
If Ubuntu is not representative, then gentoo, slackware, etc are even more unrepresentative of linux distros as a whole, no?
1) Pollution by releasing unauthorized elements- never mind that larger corporates do it all the time.
Ok, yes, people and businesses can be fined for dumping certain chemicals.
2) Poisoning the food deliberately- never mind the frequent salmonella outbreaks are because of unsafe corporate practices.
Could you give an example of this?
3) Conspiracy against State - with a view to reduce tax income from corporates by using alternate stuff - ???
Could you give an example of this?
Gates was a big fish in a small pond back in the day. Try reading the code of that BASIC interpreter. BG can't hold a candle to Woz or Chuck Moore or Dennis Ritchie.
How many people of that era CAN hold a candle to them?
Having read about that, a MIT Professor claims that either no or only a few missiles were intercepted. Others (US Govt) claim much higher hit rates.
If there is no evidence, how can you convince me to be concerned?
What more evidence do you need? We know that the current flu is a strain of h1n1. We know that in the past h1n1 has become a major global epidemic killing millions of people. We know that already--early in the outbreak--h1n1 has disproportionately affected people < 25 years old, overweight people, and pregnant women (2 of these demographics I would think are highly represented on slashdot!). We know that there has been a higher mortality rate (again, before flu season ever has started) for h1n1 than the typical seasonal flu. We believe that in the last big h1n1 outbreak, mortality may have reached 10% (if you know otherwise, please link).
We also know that refusal to get vaccinated leads to faster spreading viruses and greater mutation rates--this is not specific to h1n1. You are a perfect example of the freerider problem of herd immunity.
What evidence to you need? Your argument is fallacious because you reduce it down to "well, if I can't know the EXACT probability then it's not a threat." That sort of reasoning doesn't work anywhere in life. Probabilities are great when analyzing hindsight.
just out of curiosity--at what mortality rate would you get a vaccine? 1%? 5%? 10%? if you got the flu, how many people on average would you have to infect before you got vaccinated? 1? 3? 10? i.e., what I'm getting at is, you keep asking for exact probabilities--what are you threshholds?
And that's all I need to not only rule out getting this vaccine, but countless other simple, cheap, but *unnecessary* medical treatments.
It's always odd to me how even on a generally well informed site such as slashdot, that anti-vaccine people regularly come out of the woodworks. Are you vaccinated for measles or mumps?
Well that's rather ludicrous--you're asking for probabilities that can't be known. We can learn these things in hindsight. Like I said, we don't have crystalballs, all we have are guesses.
Perhaps the most telling part of this conversation is that you STILL have not come up with a reason to not get vaccinated beyond "I don't want to."
Ah, I didn't realize OSX could authenticate to vanilla ldap. That's good to know, thanks!
I'm not sure, what do you think? [re: mortality rate]
Well, from my best googling, it seems as if with treatment the mortality rate for children with measles ranges around 2%. Without treatment, ~20%. The rate seems similar with other infections such as rubella. Smallpox had about a 30% fatality rate.
For the 1918 h1n1 flu, this page: http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-technology-1/Biotechnology-Company-Provided-Advance-Warning-of-Mexican-H1N1--26quot-3BSwine-Flu-26quot-3B-Virus-Outbreak-11719-3/
claims 2-10% mortality.
Given that in the midst (or before) a pandemic we can't know the mortality rate, we can only look at past events. Your prevailing attitude seems to be that the flu isn't a big deal. Most years this is true. One only needs to look back over the 75 years to see how normal strains of flu can instantly become major killers.
Given that you have not come up with a single reason to not get vaccinated other than the fact that you don't want to, what's the downside?
Again, without numbers this is an arbitrary claim
What, you're claiming that the flu CAN'T become an epidemic? Just look at 1918. Or 1968. Etc. If doctors and epidemiologists could predict with 100% accuracy which strains or diseases were going to become major killers years in advance, we'd be a lot better off! Unfortunately, all we have is guesses.
Your analogy would only be valid if you could show that the probability of getting/spreading H1N1 is equivalent or even on the order of the probability of drunk driving causing an accident. Since determining this equivalence would require knowing the number for which I originally asked, it would probably be easier for you to simply provide the number for which I originally asked.
Ok, so then quantify it--at what point does a disease require mandatory vaccination?
With regards to your question--you're asking what the probability is that an infected person will pass on the flu? That's rather situation dependent! Is there a particular way you're looking for it to be quantified?
Then clearly it is in their interest to get such a vaccine - provided, of course, that you show the probability is relatively high of getting it, or at least that the probability is rapidly increasing. It's still of no concern to me, though.
You're lucky then that you're not < 25 years of age, pregnant, or obese as those are the groups that are so far primarily affected. The more people that are infected, the greater the risk of more virulent mutations.
Putting your interests above others is not insane. We're not talking about a plague here, so please stop fearmongering.
Again I ask, WHY do you think the vaccine is not in your best interest? The flu absolutely CAN be a major epidemic (definition of plague?).
Ahhh, is Open Directory just an LDAP schema?
Yes, as I said in my other post, I see no problem with people getting diseases if they choose (or choose not to protect themselves). The problem is when their actions cause a deleterious effect on others, as you point out.
In reality though, you can't sue another for getting infected -- other than perhaps those occasional cases of people who knowingly and intentionally infect their partners with AIDS.
Nobody is talking about forcing the entire population to get vaccinated. What kind of forced vaccinations are being discussed are those people who pose an immediate danger of infecting AND killing or seriously injuring others. Doctors and nurses who work with pregnant women, children, teenagers and twenty-somethings, etc. Their not getting vaccinated is a clear and present danger to their patients.
Do you know if it's possible to simulate open directory on linux(etc)?
I work in a mixed environment too, with a Samba domain server for the PCs and no directory services for the Macs. Would like to unify the two if I could.
While an over-simplified and bit off version of Objectivism, you make a good point. Nobody would care about making people get forced vaccination if getting influenza or any other infectious disease affected ONLY the infected. But the problem is, whenever someone chooses not to be protected, they themselves can become carriers and infect others.
It's a grey situation in that it's a convergence of rights. The individual right to control their own bodies vs OTHER inidividuals' right (group) not to be subjected to your germs.
You have the right to have a gun. You don't have the right to go around randomly shooting and hoping nobody gets hit. Obviously the flu is not a direct analogy, but it's the closest I can think of right now.
Again, even if I had it, there is only a probability of it being spread to others. Has anyone figured this number out?
And if you drive drunk there's only a probability of an accident occurring. Are you really arguing against the epidemiologists here?
Putting your interests above others is not insane. We're not talking about a plague here, so please stop fearmongering
So to make this statement, you clearly must believe that it is in YOUR interest to not get a vaccine. Why?
Even if you get sick but are fine, you are still contagious. Certain groups--pregnant women, children, elderly, etc--are in general more susceptible to influenza, and certain groups react differently to h1n1 than other flu strains. The more people who are suspectible to the flu, the more it spreads and the more it can mutate.
To be quite frank, your statement that "We're not talking about a plague here" is very foolish. You're no doubt living in an advanced country with high standards of medicine, but influenza (as it mutates) has the potential to kill millions of people. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_pandemic. Will swine become a huge killer? We don't know. What we DO know is that as more people are vaccinated, less people die.
So you're arguing for the right to get diseases and the right to transmit them to others? I don't think that's how rights work...
Ok, so where do you draw the line? None of bubonic plague, polio, smallpox, measles, etc kill in 100% of cases and have widely varying mortality / serious effects rate.
At what mortality point is a vaccine a a good idea? If swine flu has a 5% mortality rate, should it be vaccinated against? What about 5% mortality rate amongst certain demographics--should they be vaccinated? 1%?
Using the phrase "you don't have any idea what you're talking about" then not addressing why and going on to argue points that have nothing to do with my post is what I was talking about.
I've tried to be patient here but this is ridiculous. I cannot be any more explicit in what I'm saying. I've pointed out instance after instance where your assumptions are faulty and factually wrong. I responded to your initial post in detailed points and you move the conversation to a long (and non-specific rant) about the future of the industry. You accuse me of believing the opposite of what I clearly write (see my last post), etc--I don't understand what you're looking for in this conversation? Is there a SINGLE point of yours I haven't addressed? If you will put (e.g.) one unanswered question per line, I will absolutely do my best to address them one by one! You claim I'm not addressing your points--as they say, put up or shut up--what am I not addressing?
What I was trying to communicate in my last post wasn't some whining about you doing it but trying to make you aware that it was hurting your ability to discuss a topic with any real eye toward honest debate in which you're able to both teach and learn rather than just scoring points here and there like some sort of pseudo political debate
I hate to say this, but--get over it. I was rude in the first sentence of the first post, and have since replied to you in depth with hundreds of additional words. You can stop playing the aggrieved party now, as I said before, it gets tiresome.
If you can't stand being told that "You are factually wrong," and equate that with "someone who shouts "you're wrong stupid head" over and over" then I really don't think there's much more to say in this discussion? There's a BIG difference between ad hominem attacks and saying that you are wrong. It's not at all semantics.
Given that I have no qualms with your description of the current royalty system I would be more interested in what you think the changing market will bring because I think the big success will be for first guys to crack what that new model is. Any ideas?
I don't think anybody can know this. I think several things will happen.
- As has happened across all societies internationally, BRANDING is going to be key. Thus publishers will perhaps play a lesser role in the number of actions they perform (and are of less utility) but the branding of books is a big deal. Look at O'Reilly as somewhat of an early example of this. We see this today as various imprints remain important and prominent, even when owned by the same mega-corps. I think you'll see this extending further.
- Google/Amazon/B&N/etc on-demand printing. Has the potential to eliminate warehouse stock. We're not nearly there yet--on-demand printing still looks junky, is inferior in terms of physical quality and still far more expensive than being able to print larger quantities of a book. I don't know how long it will take, but I think it's clear that on-demand printing will remedy many of these problems in the future.
- What I honestly DON'T see (at least I don't see how yet) is authors making substantially more money than they do today. Even if publishers are eliminated (a real possibility!), the bookstores and booksellers (itunes, kindle store, etc) and book printers (traditional, on-demand), etc will remain middle-men. As I've written several times, Amazon takes a HUGE chunk of all kindle sales. I don't see this changing at all.
- I don't think I see the future being friendlier to small publishers. Again, much like we've seen elsewhere, I think the big corporations will continue to gain ground and market share. I don't see small companies going away, but look at it like this--many companies can make books, this has been true for decades. Once the book was printed, all publishers were equal. Now potential authors can judge publishers not just by the books they produce, but by we
Yes, and that's why many of the big publishers are stupid and self-defeating.
$160 textbooks are ludicrous and only make people all the more desperate for alternatives (ebooks, used books, etc).
You would think e-books would be a lot cheaper, but from what I've seen, they aren't.
You would, and I think ebook prices WILL fall. Part of the issue here is that when a publisher sells a book to a bookstore, a wholesaler, or Amazon, they sell the book at an average range of 10%-50% discount.
When Amazon sells an ebook, they typically give the publisher (or author) less than 50% of the sale price. Ebook is sold for $10, the publisher maybe gets $4.
Few books are sold as ebook ONLY, and publishers really don't make that much MORE (less?) off of ebooks, and don't want to cannibalize sales. Ultimately I think in many fields ebooks will become the primary sellers, but we're not there yet.
You're pretty much right for large publishers, but it absolutely depends on the book (length, size, color?, cover type, binding type) and print run size. For instance if you have a 200 page monograph, no color photos, 2-3 color cover, you can easily reach that $1-$3 (or less) unit price with even a small print run (1000 copies?).
On the other hand, an 900 page textbook--no color, plain cover, 2000 copy print run last year cost the publisher i work for upwards of $8/copy. That's just for the printing costs and does not include shipping, warehousing, or the production costs.
That's not really the same thing at all.
The Frankfurt Book Fair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Book_Fair) is an ancient and massive trade fair. Today it's largely a place where publishers get together to work out trade deals. For instance if a German author+publisher wants his book translated and sold in the states. Tons of business generated here.
Secondly, from the sound of the D.S. article, the survey was commissioned BY the Fair, not taken of random browsers AT the fair. Could still be biased, but I don't see what they would gain? The fair is about business.
Replying to this post instead of the other.
Second, I don't think that just because there are options to day it means the publishing industry has changed all it will. In fact I believe (though I don't think you do) that more changes are coming and that presses who attempt to keep operating the way they are currently are likely to have issues despite the fact that it already has changed to a great degree.
Let me refer you back to what I wrote earlier:
I will say one thing I agree with you on--no industry--be it banking, newspapers, automakers, or publishers DESERVES to survive merely because it did at some point in the past. Everybody must change to survive. The publishing industry in the last 30 years has gone through many major changes and consolidations and new companies emerging. This will no doubt continue (and even accelerate) in the future. Publishers will have to find ways to change or they will go out of business, just as they have changed in the past.
Is that at all at odds with what you're saying? Do you REALLY believe that I don't think the publishing industry will change? To be clear then--I think there are MAJOR changes en route and many companies WILL go out of business.
Finally, I don't think the finances you mention do anything except explain how a royalty is calculated today. I don't think you'll see publishers operating the same as they do today. I also think the cost structure will change significantly at some point as books are not printed on presses at some central location but rather in bookstores themselves which eliminates warehousing, transportation, etc. This will greatly change what the significant cost factors are and the pay and services structure will have to change to match the new reality in which I BELIEVE the author will have more power than the press.
Exactly -- I tried to be very explicit that I was describing why royalties are the way they are. Nothing to do with the future of the industry, etc. I'm repeating myself here. You will get absolutely no argument from me that there WILL be major changes in publishing. I've mentioned on-demand printing in just about every one of my replies to you!
One thing to keep in mind -- I'm under an NDA with Amazon so I can't get into details, but when we sell a kindle ebook we get roughly 50% of the ebook price. $10 ebook, amazon takes half, we take half. I believe we get better terms than (at least most) individual authors. You better believe that once Amazon (or google) starts doing on-demand printing or B&N does in the their stores, etc, that the terms are not going to be better for authors.
Do you see a shift from the purchasing side away from Borders/B&N/Amazon/Google/(and maybe Apple)? I don't think I do...
I'd urge you to go back and read my first post. At no point did I call the royalties unreasonably low. At no point did I argue that publishers should or could pay 40% royalties. Someone else asked why they didn't I said "because they don't have to" implying that they were currently the scarcer of the two resources between writers and presses.
Ok, I guess I don't understand then. It seems to me that claiming that publishers COULD pay higher royalties if they wanted to (because if "they don't have to", then they obviously could if they wanted to?) and that the reason they don't have to is because of "industry standard practice" and market barriers that artificially limit competition sounds exactly like saying that royalties are too low. Is that an unfair interpretation?
I think the fact that you work in the industry may have blinded you to what I'm actually arguing. You seem dead determined to let us know that publishers are all doing the right thing and are at the mercy of economics beyond their control. I don't disagree or even care. That wasn't the point of my post. If you don't think the industry will change then great, continue to o
Anytime you open with that and stand by it you're not looking for a conversation you're looking for an argument.
And anytime you enter into a conversation where it's clear -- and remains clear two posts in -- that you don't know much about the industry you're talking about and speak only in overly broad generalization, you're looking for ... ?
Then it's hardly applicable to the whole field of publishing.
Let me be clear since I apparently wasn't in the past post. In the academic publishing subject area I work in today there are 3 big corporations (not including their various labels), 1 small/medium, and a handful of new smalls. 30 years ago there were maybe a dozen fairly well known companies. THAT'S what is specifically applicable to the area I work in. As I attempted to explain to you later, there are all levels of publishers from big corporations to startups to self-publishing houses, etc. That's the point I was trying to make.
First $10,000 isn't bearable for the average writer. Just because you or I could pay it doesn't mean the majority of writers could. Second just getting the book printed is not the same value proposition as publishing with the promotion and distribution channels that come with a real publisher. But it is getting closer, hence my point about this situation will not last forever.
Who knows--I can tell you that a lot of people DO pay significant amounts of money to have their books published. Since I gather you're not familiar with them, there's a whole part of the publishing business called vanity presses. If you've ever read Umberto Ecco's book Foucault's Pendulum, the publishing house in that book is a (somewhat over the top) vanity press.
People can self-publish or pick more barebones publishers TODAY, there's no waiting or "just around the corner about it," so I'm unclear what changes you are waiting for?
You rightly make the point that there is a difference in service levels. This seems unlikely to change?
Competition is better than it used to be and it will get batter to the point that the middle man will slowly disappear or take on a very different role.
As I have argued twice now, there's a huge amount of competition already, from company size to amount of service to the fact that some publishers pay YOU, while YOU pay others.
This is just kind of a random rant so I'm not sure how modern victim mentality or helplessness (I assume this is what you mean but I could be wrong) and the rise of the middle man are related
You're right, it's mostly tangential -- there's no perfect example of the middleman in my opinion than the REALTOR (and an example of how governments can force the usage of middlemen to the detriment of everybody else). People no longer do many things that they used to.
Publishing has been one such market. I believe that is changing and publishing will have to change it's nature and instead sell services related to publishing rather than be the gatekeeper to the market that they have been and currently are. Eventually all the things you mention (i.e. digital distribution, print-on-demand, major etc) will make the publishing and promotional part the least valuable portion of the business and the publishers will have to change what they offer to survive. What is that? I'm not sure, perhaps editing services, art creation services, maybe they all become the print on demand sellers. The point is they will sell cheaper things to more people rather than selling a risk management service wherein they take on the financial risk of publishing and distributing a book. This is because as the industry changes that risk is going down so that middle man value is also going down.
It's when you start offering opinions like this that your lack of experience or knowledge of the publishing industry becomes problematic, and the strokes b