Picasa 2.0 was due out this summer. I wonder what will happen now? I use Picasa but am frustrated by some key features that were coming including archiving photos to CD/DVD.
In the final chapter of his book "High Stakes, No Prisoners," Charles Ferguson discusses the anti-competitive behavior of cable and telecom companies. This issue is a perfect example of his point (which I will paraphrase since I'm not as brilliant as he is).
Here we have a clear public desire for digital access to programming and what is the industries response? Litigation. Do you think cable companies are looking at ways to beef up our internet bandwidth (which would truly benefit consumers) or provide these services in a fair (and legal) way that would also make them a reasonable profit? Doubtful. Ferguson argues that cable providers don't understand the internet and fear it, and I think he makes a good argument.
Together with the phone companies, these industries have no desire to provide either faster internet access or lower costs for the consumer. In their view, doing so will lead to more program piracy and hurt the phone industry as voice-over-IP makes them obsolete. Neither industry is in a position to reshape themselves to handle this (not so) new technology.
...standing at the base of a Niagara falls... Nice analogy.
I think there's a difference between searching for information for professional purposes and surfing the web on one's own time. If you were searching for specific info for an employer, you'd be stupid to rely on a few search engines and luck. Businesses pay big bucks for private studies, reports, whatever. These are almost always specific to some aspect of that business.
However, at home most people don't have the need for specific information on some narrow topic. One minute we're searching for a weather report, then for info on bumble bees for the kid's school report, and then for the best price on a new Palm. Our personal information needs are diverse and transient. We don't want to pay a lot of money for something we will only use once and we don't want to pay a fraction of a cent for reasons others have covered in these threads. Finally, most people don't mind the gamble - it's a form of entertainment and you never know what you'll stumble across.
There is also another underlying issue about people and how they value their personal time. Some people will pay someone $20 to cut their lawn while others think it's no big deal to spend an hour of their own time...
Slashdot Mirror
Whoops - to fast on the draw. They've only eliminated the link to the forums. They're still available at this link.
Picasa 2.0 was due out this summer. I wonder what will happen now? I use Picasa but am frustrated by some key features that were coming including archiving photos to CD/DVD.
Also, they've eliminated Picasa's user forums.
In the final chapter of his book "High Stakes, No Prisoners," Charles Ferguson discusses the anti-competitive behavior of cable and telecom companies. This issue is a perfect example of his point (which I will paraphrase since I'm not as brilliant as he is).
Here we have a clear public desire for digital access to programming and what is the industries response? Litigation. Do you think cable companies are looking at ways to beef up our internet bandwidth (which would truly benefit consumers) or provide these services in a fair (and legal) way that would also make them a reasonable profit? Doubtful. Ferguson argues that cable providers don't understand the internet and fear it, and I think he makes a good argument.
Together with the phone companies, these industries have no desire to provide either faster internet access or lower costs for the consumer. In their view, doing so will lead to more program piracy and hurt the phone industry as voice-over-IP makes them obsolete. Neither industry is in a position to reshape themselves to handle this (not so) new technology.
Why isn't Justice looking at these companies?
I think there's a difference between searching for information for professional purposes and surfing the web on one's own time. If you were searching for specific info for an employer, you'd be stupid to rely on a few search engines and luck. Businesses pay big bucks for private studies, reports, whatever. These are almost always specific to some aspect of that business.
However, at home most people don't have the need for specific information on some narrow topic. One minute we're searching for a weather report, then for info on bumble bees for the kid's school report, and then for the best price on a new Palm. Our personal information needs are diverse and transient. We don't want to pay a lot of money for something we will only use once and we don't want to pay a fraction of a cent for reasons others have covered in these threads. Finally, most people don't mind the gamble - it's a form of entertainment and you never know what you'll stumble across.
There is also another underlying issue about people and how they value their personal time. Some people will pay someone $20 to cut their lawn while others think it's no big deal to spend an hour of their own time...