We've tried this system; that's how art was funded prior to the invention of copyright in, what, the 18th century? The problem with this system is that it encourages funding of a few big name artists while everyone else struggles to get noticed. The resulting body of artwork lacks diversity and tends not to challenge the status quo for fear of offending the people holding the purse strings.
Did you just describe the current situation or the 18th century? I couldn't tell.
And so what's the answer? We have several possible ways to fix this, which do you prefer?
A full-blown recession, resetting the absurd living standards people have now. That would really come in handy. If everyone would be modest with their needs, there would be no need for lots of the mass production culture we have now.
... They are the first site I think that could finally get it right...
Getting it "right" (you didn't define which values of right) never meant you were going to succeed on the web. Does Twitter get it "right?" Does Myspace (a hugely popular site) get it right? Does Ebay? What was wrong with all the sites we've never heard of that just didn't make the cut? Did they get it wrong somehow? What was wrong with Orkut? Does Facebook get it right at all? How right is it if I can't delete my account?
What is way more important than getting it right is getting the right people in. If the cool crowd surfs to Facebook, the populace will follow. The cool crowd is moest likely done with Facebook, as they are done with Myspace and all the other sites that came and went.
Facebook will fall and they know it. They'll probably retain a decent following, either niche or "old" people who don't want to change sites because they don't know how or don't want to invest, but there will be another site that will be more popular. It is the cycle of web-life. At some point, a site becomes popular enough to not be inventive because it might scare people off. They get bought up by Rupert Murdoch and you know that change is never going to come.
The problem with laissez-faire capitalism is that it stops being laissez-faire after a while. The Holy Free Market will eventually evolve to the system you have now, where large corporations buy up smaller ones for the sake of efficiency (or the threat of a smaller, more nimble company taking away from their bottom line) so consumers have less choice (where free market proponents usually say that the free market means more choice). Then they start buying up laws, I mean making huge contributions to both parties. Now we have government involved after all.
My point: a true laissez-faire capitalist society needs government involvement to keep it laissez-faire.
My conclusion: your laissez-faire society just imploded in a puff of logic.
I'll turn your argument around: let's say I am a car manufacturer, new to the market. I sell the RemmeltCar and have exclusive contracts with dealerships. Spare parts can only be had through them or directly from me.
Would you buy my car based on this information?
Judging buy your post, you probably wouldn't. If you still would want to drive a car, would there be anywhere else you could go for buying one?
My point: Apple doesn't have a monopoly on computers. They have a monopoly (if you want to call it that) on their parts, but so do Dell, Compaq, Acer, Asus, etc. If you want to buy a computer, there are lots of places you can go.
If your argument is that you want to buy a computer with OSX on it, well, I'd have to let a judge decide that one. Which is how we come back to the topic at hand;)
The point is that for pretty much anything, computers these days are fast enough. Unless you want Crysis maxed out, the computer you've bought in the last two years will easily run any program you throw at it with decent enough speed.
Unless there's going to be a killer app that requires an upgraded computer (see the chicken and egg problem there?) people can stick to what they own.
Now MS is pretending that killer app is Vista. They're saying: spend money on our OS, then spend more money on hardware, so you can do the same things you were already able to do.
I think he means to say that if there's still a reasonable alternative, why hamper the computer's speed and usability with a needless update?
I had a pretty decent Toshiba myself for a while, C2D with touch screen and everything, but with only 1GB RAM. Aero didn't even turn on, not an option. It was slow to start applications, it was slow to even open up an explorer window. Basically it was constantly swapping.
The laptop would have run faster with XP. Why was it pre-installed with Vista when there was a clear better alternative? The point is not that XP would be slow on that machine, the point is that if the machine would have been slow even with XP installed, there wouldn't have been an alternative (in the Windows world.)
The wireless network selection screen in XP SP2 (I think it was 2) that relieved us of the need to install wacky programs that came with the NIC. That was pretty decent.
How does the W3C fit into this? If Flash didn't "light a fire in their ass," neither will Silverlight. The W3C is a godsend for web developers, even if they move slowly. It has nothing to do with Flash or Silverlight, and the W3C does not hold any kind of monopoly over developers. If you do not recognize the benefits of having clear and open standards, especially for the web, I don't know if you should be developing for it. It's your choice to develop against MS' or your own standards, but don't complain when your complex, in-the-browser interface doesn't work on 20% of your users' computers.
Flash/Silverlight is no silver bullet. It breaks loads of usability rules, it doesn't act like webpages are supposed to for most of the time. You have to re-learn an interface for each site you visit. Scrollbars don't work with the scroll wheel. Deep bookmarks are off. Can't save pictures unless you screenshot. This is just off the top of my head. But yeah, go right ahead with the complex interfaces. In the meantime, Google makes an easy interface, see Gmail or Maps, and wins all your users.
I'm sorry to say this, but you are missing several points here and it's showing.
"I mean hypothetically, suppose we know a group of people are going to attack a city with a nuclear bomb" etc etc
You have GOT to stop watching 24. That shit is not REAL. It is television.
In every community, in every country, there are rules. There are laws. With every law there will be edge cases, sore spots that don't sit well with the original intent.
In your overly Hollywood-ish example, you could make the case for Jack Bauer to pop a couple of caps in the fucker's knee caps so he'll undoubtedly give up the location of the bomb. You are now on a slippery slope. Next, no more Habeas Corpus. Real ID. 100s of people in an illegal detainment camp without any kind of legal representation. A president who brushes off the constitution as "just a piece of paper."
See how that turned around and bit you in the ass?
So what do you do when someone places a bomb in your city? You ask yourself how you got in that situation in the first place.
I'd like to turn that around and say you can do all those things not because of DRM, but in spite of it.
DRM is only necessary to support the aging business model of a couple of large conglomerates. It has nothing to do with bringing more service or value to you, the customer. Yes, they tell you that the DRM enables you to do all the things you mentioned, but that's just a side benefit that gets spun into a selling point.
If the studios would think of some other business model, the music they are so desperately trying to protect (from you!) would be "free" to pass around and sample.
I'm sure you've heard all the arguments against DRM before so I won't repeat them here. I certainly admit that the features you mention are great. I'll just add that they would be possible on all phones/music players/computers if it were not for DRM.
Slashdot Mirror
"And therefor, you must acquit!"
We've tried this system; that's how art was funded prior to the invention of copyright in, what, the 18th century? The problem with this system is that it encourages funding of a few big name artists while everyone else struggles to get noticed. The resulting body of artwork lacks diversity and tends not to challenge the status quo for fear of offending the people holding the purse strings.
Did you just describe the current situation or the 18th century? I couldn't tell.
> I use IE 8. And it really is much better and right on par with Firefox
Adblock, Firebug, WebDeveloper toolbar.
Not enough? Greasemonkey. Last time I looked, some company offered something similar to FF's Live HTTP Headers for (are you sitting down?) $200.
That's strike one for you, mister.
Straw man,
[citation needed],
and parroting the entertainment industry.
Nice going!
(Yeah.)
http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000872.html
http://gigaom.com/2007/05/27/desktop-tower-defense/
According to an interview, the Desktop Tower Defense guy is making $8000 a month from ads alone.
The real question is: can you make a game that is as good, as addictive and as simple as this?
And I wouldn't even call that a camera.
Except not: http://www.macrumors.com/2009/01/31/adobe-and-apple-working-on-flash-for-iphone/
Wait, is that like one of those pyramid schemes? I've heard about those.
Actually, he isn't:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/does-metallicas.html
Also, can we go here?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jx-KCnvjTuI/SNIvxUZepyI/AAAAAAAAKHk/XQQ8H2ylRK8/s1600-h/hetfieldshopping1.jpg
"Having worked at a music store (chain, not a mom-n-pop)"
Read that part again.
OOOOOMPF!
No, that's not right.
UUUUUNGH!!!
Hmmm. Not that one either.
AAAAAARGH!!
I know it's one of those sounds, but I'm pretty new here
(etc etc etc)
And so what's the answer? We have several possible ways to fix this, which do you prefer?
A full-blown recession, resetting the absurd living standards people have now. That would really come in handy.
If everyone would be modest with their needs, there would be no need for lots of the mass production culture we have now.
Thank god for the recession!
You make the USA sound so leader-like.
... They are the first site I think that could finally get it right...
Getting it "right" (you didn't define which values of right) never meant you were going to succeed on the web. Does Twitter get it "right?" Does Myspace (a hugely popular site) get it right? Does Ebay?
What was wrong with all the sites we've never heard of that just didn't make the cut? Did they get it wrong somehow? What was wrong with Orkut?
Does Facebook get it right at all? How right is it if I can't delete my account?
What is way more important than getting it right is getting the right people in. If the cool crowd surfs to Facebook, the populace will follow. The cool crowd is moest likely done with Facebook, as they are done with Myspace and all the other sites that came and went.
Facebook will fall and they know it. They'll probably retain a decent following, either niche or "old" people who don't want to change sites because they don't know how or don't want to invest, but there will be another site that will be more popular. It is the cycle of web-life. At some point, a site becomes popular enough to not be inventive because it might scare people off. They get bought up by Rupert Murdoch and you know that change is never going to come.
The problem with laissez-faire capitalism is that it stops being laissez-faire after a while. The Holy Free Market will eventually evolve to the system you have now, where large corporations buy up smaller ones for the sake of efficiency (or the threat of a smaller, more nimble company taking away from their bottom line) so consumers have less choice (where free market proponents usually say that the free market means more choice). Then they start buying up laws, I mean making huge contributions to both parties. Now we have government involved after all.
My point: a true laissez-faire capitalist society needs government involvement to keep it laissez-faire.
My conclusion: your laissez-faire society just imploded in a puff of logic.
> Note that Germany is taxed lower than the USA
Say what?
VAT is at 19%
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umsatzsteuer
Income Tax is progressive and will be around 30% (give or take) on average.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einkommensteuer_(Deutschland)
In no way is Germany taxed lower than the USA. We're debating a 5% sales tax on luxury goods here. Compare to the 19% the Germans pay.
Citation needed, indeed.
I'll turn your argument around: let's say I am a car manufacturer, new to the market. I sell the RemmeltCar and have exclusive contracts with dealerships. Spare parts can only be had through them or directly from me.
Would you buy my car based on this information?
Judging buy your post, you probably wouldn't. If you still would want to drive a car, would there be anywhere else you could go for buying one?
My point: Apple doesn't have a monopoly on computers. They have a monopoly (if you want to call it that) on their parts, but so do Dell, Compaq, Acer, Asus, etc. If you want to buy a computer, there are lots of places you can go.
If your argument is that you want to buy a computer with OSX on it, well, I'd have to let a judge decide that one. Which is how we come back to the topic at hand ;)
Oh? Does Toshiba support Ubuntu officially? Still, he had that working inside of an hour...
The point is that for pretty much anything, computers these days are fast enough. Unless you want Crysis maxed out, the computer you've bought in the last two years will easily run any program you throw at it with decent enough speed.
Unless there's going to be a killer app that requires an upgraded computer (see the chicken and egg problem there?) people can stick to what they own.
Now MS is pretending that killer app is Vista. They're saying: spend money on our OS, then spend more money on hardware, so you can do the same things you were already able to do.
Where are the new killer features?
I think he means to say that if there's still a reasonable alternative, why hamper the computer's speed and usability with a needless update?
I had a pretty decent Toshiba myself for a while, C2D with touch screen and everything, but with only 1GB RAM. Aero didn't even turn on, not an option. It was slow to start applications, it was slow to even open up an explorer window. Basically it was constantly swapping.
The laptop would have run faster with XP. Why was it pre-installed with Vista when there was a clear better alternative? The point is not that XP would be slow on that machine, the point is that if the machine would have been slow even with XP installed, there wouldn't have been an alternative (in the Windows world.)
The wireless network selection screen in XP SP2 (I think it was 2) that relieved us of the need to install wacky programs that came with the NIC. That was pretty decent.
How does the W3C fit into this? If Flash didn't "light a fire in their ass," neither will Silverlight. The W3C is a godsend for web developers, even if they move slowly. It has nothing to do with Flash or Silverlight, and the W3C does not hold any kind of monopoly over developers. If you do not recognize the benefits of having clear and open standards, especially for the web, I don't know if you should be developing for it. It's your choice to develop against MS' or your own standards, but don't complain when your complex, in-the-browser interface doesn't work on 20% of your users' computers.
Flash/Silverlight is no silver bullet. It breaks loads of usability rules, it doesn't act like webpages are supposed to for most of the time. You have to re-learn an interface for each site you visit. Scrollbars don't work with the scroll wheel. Deep bookmarks are off. Can't save pictures unless you screenshot. This is just off the top of my head. But yeah, go right ahead with the complex interfaces. In the meantime, Google makes an easy interface, see Gmail or Maps, and wins all your users.
I'm sorry to say this, but you are missing several points here and it's showing.
"I mean hypothetically, suppose we know a group of people are going to attack a city with a nuclear bomb" etc etc
You have GOT to stop watching 24. That shit is not REAL. It is television.
In every community, in every country, there are rules. There are laws. With every law there will be edge cases, sore spots that don't sit well with the original intent.
In your overly Hollywood-ish example, you could make the case for Jack Bauer to pop a couple of caps in the fucker's knee caps so he'll undoubtedly give up the location of the bomb. You are now on a slippery slope. Next, no more Habeas Corpus. Real ID. 100s of people in an illegal detainment camp without any kind of legal representation. A president who brushes off the constitution as "just a piece of paper."
See how that turned around and bit you in the ass?
So what do you do when someone places a bomb in your city? You ask yourself how you got in that situation in the first place.
I'd like to turn that around and say you can do all those things not because of DRM, but in spite of it.
DRM is only necessary to support the aging business model of a couple of large conglomerates. It has nothing to do with bringing more service or value to you, the customer. Yes, they tell you that the DRM enables you to do all the things you mentioned, but that's just a side benefit that gets spun into a selling point.
If the studios would think of some other business model, the music they are so desperately trying to protect (from you!) would be "free" to pass around and sample.
I'm sure you've heard all the arguments against DRM before so I won't repeat them here. I certainly admit that the features you mention are great. I'll just add that they would be possible on all phones/music players/computers if it were not for DRM.