Well... You could get off your rich asses and pitch in on a T1 or T3 that you then split via wire or wireless to each contributors home. But, apparently you are just going to wait for the man to give you the access that you want..
Call your local Baby Bell and get yourself wired. Share your connection with your neighbors for a fee. Is capitalism to advanced a concept for you to grasp?
. blah, somebody needs to pull me over for a PUI, posting under the influence;)
This is the funniest article i have read on/. in a long time. The poor corporate enterprises are being taken advantage of by the people. OHH NO!!
This article really drives home the point that corporations feel that it is their god-given right to profit off of the sheep. But, when the sheep stand up and do shit for themselves, they whine and cry about how unfair it is that they were cheated out of a profit. IMO, a profit they have neither earned or deserved.
This joke will laugh me into my fucking grave. If nobody understands that all human organizations are in existence for the purpose of bettering the condition of the whole human race, then we are lost.
There's no room for fucking the next guy over. Capitalism, in its true sense, is about making the most efficient use of our resources as a people. If the Microsofts and Bells and Monsantos can't get with the program, then they are the ones that will be put to rest. Their employees will find more useful jobs to do. Their executives can sleep on the streets. They have shown the rest of humanity the same courtesy. Let them bear the fruit of their labor.
To summarize the corporate representatives in the article: "We don't care if everyone has access to the net. All we care about is whether we are allowed to profit from the few that we bestow that access upon."
Well, I tried, but I don't think I could have come up with a better set of quotes to summarize the uncaring greedy corporate attitude than the set of quotes found in this article.
. Suck on my cock you poor corporate bastards. If you're hurtin, it's because you lost all touch with basic human values a long long time ago.
So, you've gone from posting crappy information poor blinking web sewage to patenting software processes? Congratulations on your evolution. If only all of us could undergo such rich personal growth.
Barring my opinion of your personal values, it appears that you and the guy you're arguing with have a simple difference in preference. He prefers an online environment with high signal to noise ratio. You prefer the low signal to noise ratio. He prefers a lower quantity of higher quality content, and you think it's better to have a much larger quantity of content under the assumption that high quality content will continue to exist amongst the garbage. It's really useless for either one of you to claim that the other one is wrong, since your views reflect nothing more than the environment you prefer. From your history, it seems probable to me that you have never experienced the online environment that he used to be a part of. That environment has been destroyed. It was destroyed when people like you trampled the net, approaching it with the attitude that it was your own new personal toy or newest entrepreneurial vehicle to profit. When you and the rest moved into his playground, you did so without respect for the existing rules that had been developed with wisdom to sustain and promote the growth and value of the medium. Yes, you can call him elitist, but your opinion hardly matters, you are a common oaf trapsing through the fields of the lords, you and your massive swarm of idiots trampling the grounds, turning what was once a beautifully cultivated garden into a mudpit reminescent of Woodstock 99. You don't get it. And likely never will. There was a time when each new member to arrive on the net was schooled by the elders as to proper online behavior, becoming in a short time a teacher as well. However, when the barbarian hordes arrived to grab their piece of the pie, they elders were quickly overwhelmed. The commons were quickly destroyed and the festival of mediocrity and crass unscrupulous commercialism has been raging ever since.
However, it's true that there are many resources available now on the net, that weren't available then and, had things stayed the same, likely never would have been. The net has enabled a huge number of people to do things that were previously impossible in the real world, so there are definite advantages that have come with the mindless hordes. Which net is the better net is really a moot point, since there's no going back.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that you haven't said anything that disproves his point of view, and your preferred version of the net is what exists. You like it, he doesn't. To call him an elitist may be appropriate. But, IMO, it is appropriate for him to BE an elitist. How are the educated and informed supposed to deal with the idiotic, ignorant, and stupid? It's difficult, and many, like him, would rather create a niche where they can congregate with others of their kind who are capable of relating with each other intelligently, thus avoiding the high noise factor of most of the net. If it hurts your feelings that he expresses the fact that he feels this way, then it's likely because you are becoming conscious of your own ignorance. You can accept it and deal with it appropriately, by working to become less ignorant, or you can call him an elitist and try to convince him that if he was a good person he would change his thinking. IMO, he should not "get with the program" and attempt to be just as ignorant as everyone else. He's not an elitist, he's elite. There's a difference. And he wasn't insulting you and your kind, he was advertising something that he considered to be better. It's not his fault that that makes you feel inferior.
Damnit, I keep reading your post again, and I just keep wanting to slap you about something else:
" I want everyone to have a presence online, because this only makes the better content providers want to have better content to differentiate from the crowd."
I'm not seeing the cause and effect here. The more people that there are online, the more content providers will push mediocre crap. The better content providers' sites will likely be overrun by morons, as has been seen on Slashdot. Resources will be ruined. Evidenced by the new trend of tricking your way to the top of Google. What you don't seem to understand is that the net is not about "content providers". On the net we are ALL content providers. I am providing you with content right now. I can set up my own website and talk about my stupid day. That's part of the power of the net. The shame of it all, though, is how wasted this power is on people with no fucking clue. I don't have a website, because it would be stupid of me to waste those resources. Other people don't seem to have a problem with that. Spammers don't seem to have a problem with bogging down the net with millions of pieces of useless email everyday. This is exactly the attitude that this guy has a problem with. Before the ignorant and selfish overran the place, there was something called netiquette. Many newbs were introduced to its tenets with a flaming tongue, and they learned or went away. The AOL hordes are too numerous and too dense to be effectively reached, Spammers are too selfish, advertisers too greedy, and the rest too apathetic.
And besides all that, which went off on a tangent, including more people in the nets marketing demographic is likely to drag the net down rather than push it up. Here's how it works in reality: A good content provider, who likely starts his site as a non-profit endeavor, gets noticed, attracting a small following. If he continues to provide fresh content, word spreads and the following grows. The problem with that, though, is that all of those loyal followers are now costing the provider a hefty sum in bandwidth charges. The site may still be attracting the cream of the crop of netizens at this point, but, in general, the people that find his site later than others are more likely to be toward the middle or lower ends of the bell curve. So, the readership of the site grows and grows to the point where the provider has to start placing ads on his site or go under. So, he places ads on the site. Most people don't care to much, and the site continues to grow, as the provider redoubles his efforts and devotes more time to the site, because now he has to make the numbers balance. This is both good and bad for the site, because though he will likely be putting more effort into the site, he may also be stretching his talents to find new and interesting ways to entertain his readership. Well, say he is successful, the readership continues to grow, until his site is extremely popular. To pay for his bandwidth our provider must become ever more creative at finding new ways to please his audience. Many of them, email him to tell him what they want the site to be about. Since netizens have nothing if not unsolicited opinions, our provider likely hears from a pretty wide distribution of his readership. If he gives them what they want, will he be making his site better? Will he be distinguishing himself from the crowd by giving the crowd, the uneducated masses, what they want? It works for television, doesn't it? It works for pop music, doesn't it?Surely it would work the same way for an online content provider, right?;)
Draw your own conclusions. If you still think you're right, then you probably just lack good taste.
Honestly, I'm not trying to troll you here, but why would you WANT to run a *nix kernel on hardware that's responsible for engine timing? Especially when you apparently already have tech that works. Is the idea just to make vehicles that much harder for people to maintain? The day my mechanic keeps a sysadmin on duty so he patch my buggy Linux 4.5.3 ECU is the day I put a gun to my head and pull the trigger.
Ohh yeah.. I forgot to tell you. Fsck IE. Any fucktard that uses slow ass IE when Opera is available is a fucking moron.
. And it doesn't surprise me at all that 95% of desktop users are morons. Hell, you probably use IE, and you chose Archie Bunker as a nick. You MUST be a moron. Thanks for speaking up for your species. Now please sit down and let the IQ-enabled people talk.
Fsck IE! I'm using Lynx count me among the 5% and 30% respectively. Of course, I do feel kindof naked without all the pretty pictures.. Wait, what are we arguing about again? Ohh, you said something irrelevant and stupid, so I laughed at you. Then I posted this stupid message. Laugh at me.
Woohoo!! Finally! I'm so glad that asshole is finally dead. Slashdot Unite!! We will celebrate with a joint DDOSing of his publishers webservers!! Death to the King!!
Yeah.. When I read this on OSNews, I couldn't help thinking this was really old news. Now to see it on/. after OSNews, I'm starting to think there's a stupidity virus travelling amongst the IT groupie crowd..
It probably has something to do with a little technicality called the First Amendment, but I'm not really sure. If you don't get it, I have a High School Diploma I'll sell you. Maybe some Herbal Viagra? Or would you just like to see me naked?
What, do you make your living off of Spam? I for one wouldn't mind making a few hundred bucks at the expense of the assholes that keep trying to sell me Herbal Viagra and fake University degrees.
Bah! Shut up stupid money-worshipper. Take your stupid economics and shove it up your fsckin ass!
What determines whether it is a good thing or not is whether the world is better off for it. Is there an absolute measure of how well off the world is? Is it economics? I don't think so. If you do, then you can go continue to ponder the natural laws of the flow of beans from person to person if you like.
You'd never see the end of the Troll vs. Editor wars then. The other/. editors would have to kick Michael's ass if he started doing that. The editors have enough criticism to deal with without provoking the ultimate/. war. Which is what it would you would see. He's much more useful as a an indicator that the editors don't mod in a biased fashion, because he is such a high-profile obvious target. As much as Michael "may" want to censor Seth, he can't do it without proving that he's an ass. IMO, whatever the truth behind the story, Michael and the editors have shown admirable maturity and restraint in basically allowing Seth to speak his mind without making this a Slashdot issue. Which it really isn't. Though, I'm sure many/. readers are curious to hear Michael's side of the story.
No to troll, but I just had to throw this in. If all software that was written for the PC was open-sourced from the start, because it was the "right" thing to do, do you think that might have also helped our economy in the sense that we would now have stable, robust, powerful software available to do all of our work? Or do you think all of the inefficiency and waste created by closed-source apps is better because it "creates jobs" or something? Obviously the M$ business model of embrace-extend, bloat & force upgrade, etc. has created quite a few jobs and spurred hardware sales. However, having not tried things the other way around, can you be sure that legally forced all released software to be open-source wouldn't have provided a more substantial economic benefit to all of the other sectors of society that depend on this software to make the world actually work?
The argument that you are making is that our economy is better off because computer software producers have been involved in very expensive large scale busy-work. It's like claiming that the IRS is a productive organization because it keeps a ton of accountants busy. What you don't seem to be addressing is that, if we had a different tax system, that didn't require such a massive amount of accounting, our society might actually function more productively.
Don't confuse busy-work with economic good. That case is very debatable, IMO.
Actually I'm not the use who started this "musicians will have to tour their ass off to make a living" thread, and I don't think that's true. And, you're right I was being a bit insensitive.
However, I think you're accussing me of holding views that I do not hold. What gets in the way of the plans of the copyright industry is that people WILL find a way to defeat whatever copy control measures are forced on them, because people want to be able to use what they have bought however they want to. The content industry is afraid of the Internet, yet no conclusive data yet exists that it will kill the industry.
For thousands of years artists have been subsidized by society through a variety of forms that resembled tipping. A travelling minstrel gets a place at the fire, some food to eat and possibly a place to sleep. People take care of artists because they enrich human experience. The Internet and file-sharing does not kill this tendency in human nature. What we need though, is a convenient way to show our appreciation (monetarily) directly to artists that we like. If my file-sharing client had a button that I could click to send a voluntary donation to an artist of my choice, I would do that in a heartbeat. I'd likely end up tipping the artists more than they would have made from any CD royalties that the record companies would give them. And, they would directly KNOW that I appreciated their music, which is one of the main motivators of artists. Right now, it's very difficult for me to do something like this. I have to hunt down the artist and send them some money, which I'm not going to take the time to do. A system like this would in effect replace not only CD distribution, which I don't want or need, but also acheive certain aspects of live performance (direct relationship between artists and fans, the consciousness of an audience).
Your hypothetical handicapped musician would likely do well in this scenario. He gets to keep the rights to his music, acheive wide distribution (because file-sharing is not looked down upon), receive monetary compensation and feedback directly from his audience, and can take orders himself for CD's of his works for people that want them on a preorder basis. He can print up 1000 CD's and actually make some money off them.
What I'm trying to tell you is that the business doesn't have to either work how the RIAA wants it to or completely fail. People are not only willing to compensate artists, but actually eager to do it. Cutting the record companies out as the middleman could be the greatest thing to ever happen to the artist with your hypothetical handicap. Don't let the content industry fool you. They are not trying to protect the artists, they are trying to protect their monopoly over the production, distribution and marketing of culture. I'm saying that if we ignore them and find our own way to compensate artists, we'll all be better of as a society. You may think I'm being unrealistic, but you apparently seem to care about artists being compensated for their work, wouldn't you tip them well?
It's better to build a system to allow people to tip artists voluntarily, than it is to force people to pay through the nose just to find out whether they like something or not.
Here's a link for you, this guy expresses the same ideas much more eloquently than I can:
http://tipster.weblogs.com/hapgood
Enjoy! My apologies for my crass, self-centered, insensitive attitude.
Slashdot Mirror
Well... You could get off your rich asses and pitch in on a T1 or T3 that you then split via wire or wireless to each contributors home. But, apparently you are just going to wait for the man to give you the access that you want..
Call your local Baby Bell and get yourself wired. Share your connection with your neighbors for a fee. Is capitalism to advanced a concept for you to grasp?
.
blah, somebody needs to pull me over for a PUI, posting under the influence
This is the funniest article i have read on
This article really drives home the point that corporations feel that it is their god-given right to profit off of the sheep. But, when the sheep stand up and do shit for themselves, they whine and cry about how unfair it is that they were cheated out of a profit. IMO, a profit they have neither earned or deserved.
This joke will laugh me into my fucking grave. If nobody understands that all human organizations are in existence for the purpose of bettering the condition of the whole human race, then we are lost.
There's no room for fucking the next guy over. Capitalism, in its true sense, is about making the most efficient use of our resources as a people. If the Microsofts and Bells and Monsantos can't get with the program, then they are the ones that will be put to rest. Their employees will find more useful jobs to do. Their executives can sleep on the streets. They have shown the rest of humanity the same courtesy. Let them bear the fruit of their labor.
To summarize the corporate representatives in the article: "We don't care if everyone has access to the net. All we care about is whether we are allowed to profit from the few that we bestow that access upon."
Well, I tried, but I don't think I could have come up with a better set of quotes to summarize the uncaring greedy corporate attitude than the set of quotes found in this article.
. Suck on my cock you poor corporate bastards. If you're hurtin, it's because you lost all touch with basic human values a long long time ago.
.
So, you've gone from posting crappy information poor blinking web sewage to patenting software processes? Congratulations on your evolution. If only all of us could undergo such rich personal growth.
Barring my opinion of your personal values, it appears that you and the guy you're arguing with have a simple difference in preference. He prefers an online environment with high signal to noise ratio. You prefer the low signal to noise ratio. He prefers a lower quantity of higher quality content, and you think it's better to have a much larger quantity of content under the assumption that high quality content will continue to exist amongst the garbage. It's really useless for either one of you to claim that the other one is wrong, since your views reflect nothing more than the environment you prefer. From your history, it seems probable to me that you have never experienced the online environment that he used to be a part of. That environment has been destroyed. It was destroyed when people like you trampled the net, approaching it with the attitude that it was your own new personal toy or newest entrepreneurial vehicle to profit. When you and the rest moved into his playground, you did so without respect for the existing rules that had been developed with wisdom to sustain and promote the growth and value of the medium. Yes, you can call him elitist, but your opinion hardly matters, you are a common oaf trapsing through the fields of the lords, you and your massive swarm of idiots trampling the grounds, turning what was once a beautifully cultivated garden into a mudpit reminescent of Woodstock 99. You don't get it. And likely never will. There was a time when each new member to arrive on the net was schooled by the elders as to proper online behavior, becoming in a short time a teacher as well. However, when the barbarian hordes arrived to grab their piece of the pie, they elders were quickly overwhelmed. The commons were quickly destroyed and the festival of mediocrity and crass unscrupulous commercialism has been raging ever since.
However, it's true that there are many resources available now on the net, that weren't available then and, had things stayed the same, likely never would have been. The net has enabled a huge number of people to do things that were previously impossible in the real world, so there are definite advantages that have come with the mindless hordes. Which net is the better net is really a moot point, since there's no going back.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that you haven't said anything that disproves his point of view, and your preferred version of the net is what exists. You like it, he doesn't. To call him an elitist may be appropriate. But, IMO, it is appropriate for him to BE an elitist. How are the educated and informed supposed to deal with the idiotic, ignorant, and stupid? It's difficult, and many, like him, would rather create a niche where they can congregate with others of their kind who are capable of relating with each other intelligently, thus avoiding the high noise factor of most of the net. If it hurts your feelings that he expresses the fact that he feels this way, then it's likely because you are becoming conscious of your own ignorance. You can accept it and deal with it appropriately, by working to become less ignorant, or you can call him an elitist and try to convince him that if he was a good person he would change his thinking. IMO, he should not "get with the program" and attempt to be just as ignorant as everyone else. He's not an elitist, he's elite. There's a difference. And he wasn't insulting you and your kind, he was advertising something that he considered to be better. It's not his fault that that makes you feel inferior.
Damnit, I keep reading your post again, and I just keep wanting to slap you about something else:
" I want everyone to have a presence online, because this only makes the better content providers want to have better content to differentiate from the crowd."
I'm not seeing the cause and effect here. The more people that there are online, the more content providers will push mediocre crap. The better content providers' sites will likely be overrun by morons, as has been seen on Slashdot. Resources will be ruined. Evidenced by the new trend of tricking your way to the top of Google. What you don't seem to understand is that the net is not about "content providers". On the net we are ALL content providers. I am providing you with content right now. I can set up my own website and talk about my stupid day. That's part of the power of the net. The shame of it all, though, is how wasted this power is on people with no fucking clue. I don't have a website, because it would be stupid of me to waste those resources. Other people don't seem to have a problem with that. Spammers don't seem to have a problem with bogging down the net with millions of pieces of useless email everyday. This is exactly the attitude that this guy has a problem with. Before the ignorant and selfish overran the place, there was something called netiquette. Many newbs were introduced to its tenets with a flaming tongue, and they learned or went away. The AOL hordes are too numerous and too dense to be effectively reached, Spammers are too selfish, advertisers too greedy, and the rest too apathetic.
And besides all that, which went off on a tangent, including more people in the nets marketing demographic is likely to drag the net down rather than push it up. Here's how it works in reality: A good content provider, who likely starts his site as a non-profit endeavor, gets noticed, attracting a small following. If he continues to provide fresh content, word spreads and the following grows. The problem with that, though, is that all of those loyal followers are now costing the provider a hefty sum in bandwidth charges. The site may still be attracting the cream of the crop of netizens at this point, but, in general, the people that find his site later than others are more likely to be toward the middle or lower ends of the bell curve. So, the readership of the site grows and grows to the point where the provider has to start placing ads on his site or go under. So, he places ads on the site. Most people don't care to much, and the site continues to grow, as the provider redoubles his efforts and devotes more time to the site, because now he has to make the numbers balance. This is both good and bad for the site, because though he will likely be putting more effort into the site, he may also be stretching his talents to find new and interesting ways to entertain his readership. Well, say he is successful, the readership continues to grow, until his site is extremely popular. To pay for his bandwidth our provider must become ever more creative at finding new ways to please his audience. Many of them, email him to tell him what they want the site to be about. Since netizens have nothing if not unsolicited opinions, our provider likely hears from a pretty wide distribution of his readership. If he gives them what they want, will he be making his site better? Will he be distinguishing himself from the crowd by giving the crowd, the uneducated masses, what they want? It works for television, doesn't it? It works for pop music, doesn't it?Surely it would work the same way for an online content provider, right?
Draw your own conclusions. If you still think you're right, then you probably just lack good taste.
.
Honestly, I'm not trying to troll you here, but why would you WANT to run a *nix kernel on hardware that's responsible for engine timing? Especially when you apparently already have tech that works. Is the idea just to make vehicles that much harder for people to maintain? The day my mechanic keeps a sysadmin on duty so he patch my buggy Linux 4.5.3 ECU is the day I put a gun to my head and pull the trigger.
Aside from that. Way to inform the masses.
Know shit!! Wat teh fack waz I thincking? You got me.
.
Nah. I'll just wait for Taco to post the definitive answer once the debate is over..
.
Know they're usually 13 yr old trolls who end up breaking their necks trying to suck their own dicks.. But, you can believe what you want..
Ohh yeah.. I forgot to tell you. Fsck IE. Any fucktard that uses slow ass IE when Opera is available is a fucking moron.
.
And it doesn't surprise me at all that 95% of desktop users are morons. Hell, you probably use IE, and you chose Archie Bunker as a nick. You MUST be a moron. Thanks for speaking up for your species. Now please sit down and let the IQ-enabled people talk.
Fsck IE! I'm using Lynx count me among the 5% and 30% respectively.
Of course, I do feel kindof naked without all the pretty pictures.. Wait, what are we arguing about again? Ohh, you said something irrelevant and stupid, so I laughed at you. Then I posted this stupid message. Laugh at me.
.
You're an idiot.
Woohoo!! Finally! I'm so glad that asshole is finally dead. Slashdot Unite!! We will celebrate with a joint DDOSing of his publishers webservers!! Death to the King!!
Swamp land in Florida!!?!? Like the kind I could build a really successful theme park on? Cool!!
Wait.. Must stop feeding trolls... ahhh!! Can't help myself.. ARGGGHHH!!! AIYEEEE!!
.
Yeah.. When I read this on OSNews, I couldn't help thinking this was really old news.
Now to see it on
.
Lol!! Mod parent up for exhibiting L337 trolling skills!
.
Uhh, that was either a joke or a troll. Either way you got caught!
.
It probably has something to do with a little technicality called the First Amendment, but I'm not really sure. If you don't get it, I have a High School Diploma I'll sell you. Maybe some Herbal Viagra? Or would you just like to see me naked?
What, do you make your living off of Spam? I for one wouldn't mind making a few hundred bucks at the expense of the assholes that keep trying to sell me Herbal Viagra and fake University degrees.
Bah! Shut up stupid money-worshipper. Take your stupid economics and shove it up your fsckin ass!
What determines whether it is a good thing or not is whether the world is better off for it. Is there an absolute measure of how well off the world is? Is it economics? I don't think so. If you do, then you can go continue to ponder the natural laws of the flow of beans from person to person if you like.
.
So do you have an answer for him, now that you know what he was wondering? Hmm, guess not. Sit down and shut up.
.
You forgot s/Hackers/Hacker/ in the comment title. One thing is in the comment itself, but in the title? C'mon.
.
LOL, you are just a thorn in michael's side. Poor guy. Do you think he cries himself to sleep every night?
.
You'd never see the end of the Troll vs. Editor wars then. The other
No to troll, but I just had to throw this in. If all software that was written for the PC was open-sourced from the start, because it was the "right" thing to do, do you think that might have also helped our economy in the sense that we would now have stable, robust, powerful software available to do all of our work? Or do you think all of the inefficiency and waste created by closed-source apps is better because it "creates jobs" or something? Obviously the M$ business model of embrace-extend, bloat & force upgrade, etc. has created quite a few jobs and spurred hardware sales. However, having not tried things the other way around, can you be sure that legally forced all released software to be open-source wouldn't have provided a more substantial economic benefit to all of the other sectors of society that depend on this software to make the world actually work?
The argument that you are making is that our economy is better off because computer software producers have been involved in very expensive large scale busy-work. It's like claiming that the IRS is a productive organization because it keeps a ton of accountants busy. What you don't seem to be addressing is that, if we had a different tax system, that didn't require such a massive amount of accounting, our society might actually function more productively.
Don't confuse busy-work with economic good. That case is very debatable, IMO.
.
Uhh, the Answer to the personal question doesn't have to be correct. That'll take care of the personal friends AND the hackers that do their homework.
.
Actually I'm not the use who started this "musicians will have to tour their ass off to make a living" thread, and I don't think that's true. And, you're right I was being a bit insensitive.
However, I think you're accussing me of holding views that I do not hold. What gets in the way of the plans of the copyright industry is that people WILL find a way to defeat whatever copy control measures are forced on them, because people want to be able to use what they have bought however they want to. The content industry is afraid of the Internet, yet no conclusive data yet exists that it will kill the industry.
For thousands of years artists have been subsidized by society through a variety of forms that resembled tipping. A travelling minstrel gets a place at the fire, some food to eat and possibly a place to sleep. People take care of artists because they enrich human experience. The Internet and file-sharing does not kill this tendency in human nature. What we need though, is a convenient way to show our appreciation (monetarily) directly to artists that we like. If my file-sharing client had a button that I could click to send a voluntary donation to an artist of my choice, I would do that in a heartbeat. I'd likely end up tipping the artists more than they would have made from any CD royalties that the record companies would give them. And, they would directly KNOW that I appreciated their music, which is one of the main motivators of artists. Right now, it's very difficult for me to do something like this. I have to hunt down the artist and send them some money, which I'm not going to take the time to do. A system like this would in effect replace not only CD distribution, which I don't want or need, but also acheive certain aspects of live performance (direct relationship between artists and fans, the consciousness of an audience).
Your hypothetical handicapped musician would likely do well in this scenario. He gets to keep the rights to his music, acheive wide distribution (because file-sharing is not looked down upon), receive monetary compensation and feedback directly from his audience, and can take orders himself for CD's of his works for people that want them on a preorder basis. He can print up 1000 CD's and actually make some money off them.
What I'm trying to tell you is that the business doesn't have to either work how the RIAA wants it to or completely fail. People are not only willing to compensate artists, but actually eager to do it. Cutting the record companies out as the middleman could be the greatest thing to ever happen to the artist with your hypothetical handicap. Don't let the content industry fool you. They are not trying to protect the artists, they are trying to protect their monopoly over the production, distribution and marketing of culture. I'm saying that if we ignore them and find our own way to compensate artists, we'll all be better of as a society. You may think I'm being unrealistic, but you apparently seem to care about artists being compensated for their work, wouldn't you tip them well?
It's better to build a system to allow people to tip artists voluntarily, than it is to force people to pay through the nose just to find out whether they like something or not.
Here's a link for you, this guy expresses the same ideas much more eloquently than I can:
http://tipster.weblogs.com/hapgood
Enjoy! My apologies for my crass, self-centered, insensitive attitude.