You make the common mistake in assuming the price for commodities are sold at has some basis in reality. Oil is traded on commodity exchanges all over the world.
Why did oil drop by $10 a barrel in the last few weeks? Did the scarcity suddenly end? Why do gas prices in the US seem to reflect the oil futures market when the real price for the oil refined into gasoline lags the futures market by at least three or four months? The answer is that none of these prices has any real foundation in costs or expenses. The prices are determined by a futures market where traders are playing off each other. Someone buys a contract for March delivery and can then sell it for $0.001 a barrel more than they bought it for and they make a few thousand dollars. Magnify this by hundreds of traders on the 10 or 20 commodity exchanges and you get the idea of how this is really controlled.
Sure, OPEC can try to put a floor under this, and they have in the past. But they have no control over the upper limit - that is set by the traders. And, like all traders (or gamblers), they are ruled by their emotions rather than logic. This means that while Iraq is sitting unable to deliver any oil this must mean that people will pay more for it in a few months - so the March contract must be worth more. Right.
Can't sue because there is no chain of evidence leading to a particular ship. If you could prove that this trash came from some particular ship, you could probably sue them.
Of course, that is assuming that dumping trash and sewage in the ocean is a crime. It isn't. New York dumps their trash in the ocean.
So the first step is to get dumping garbage in the ocean made into a crime. Unfortunately, if you do it in International waters, who has jurisdiction? Nobody does, that's the whole point. So I guess the first step is the formation of a world government that trumps the sovernity of all nations so that they can declare dumping trash in the ocean (in International waters) is a crime.
OK, let's assume for the sake of argument that the majority of the US is composed of evil people that simply want to kill others for sport, fun and to steal their possessions. Everybody is fair game in the whole world (outside of the US) and if you don't stop us, we're going to kill everyone else. Is that what you really think?
If you believe that some small fraction of the Iraqi population is just trying to defend their homes from ruthless invaders, well, what about the rest of the people there? Why isn't this resistance universal? How come there are so few "defending" and why do they kill other Iraqi civilians while "defending" their homes?
How about there is a small fraction of the population that wants to oppress the others and don't care if some of those others get killed in the process. They have been in power for 40 years or so because we put them there and it is about time we cleaned up our mess. The US is finally taking responsibility for putting a madman in power in Iraq and stomping out his fellow travelers that had a piece of the action before.
As to Iraq threatening people, sure - while the sanctions were in place they were shooting at US and UK planes patrolling the no-fly zone. They had lots of preparations for the sanctions being over with and lots of folks in EU ready and willing to sell them all sorts of weapons and chemicals to wreak havoc on Israel and their other neighbors. Threats? No, of course you are correct - Iraq was no threat to the US as long as we don't trade with anybody and keep on our side of the oceans. That might be the better solution, but I don't see it getting implemented anytime soon. So, yes, they were a threat to the stability of the region and to the credibility of the UN.
It isn't just the American lifestyle that isn't sustainable. It is everybody in Europe, Japan, Australia and a good part of South America as well. Nope, we are creating waste products faster than natural processes can convert them back into usable form.
What does that mean? Life on planet Earth isn't sustainable at the current population level at anything near the current lifestyle enjoyed by most people in industrialized nations.
We have some really hard choices coming up:
Reduce the population. Drastically - like to a worldwide level of maybe 100 million people.
Accept a lifestyle more in line with a Bangladeshi farmer for everyone on the planet. You don't get to use any energy you didn't produce.
Start planning on the survival of the human race based on getting resources from places other than just Earth. And start doing something about this soon.
Of course, the last item is the one that makes sense - we're not going to do either of the other two. Unfortunately, until we get over the "it might be dangerous" we need to start making people understand the other two alternatives do really exist.
Come on, folks, can't you see that waste products are being created at a rate faster than they are naturally recycled? What does that mean?
You can forget about the US imposing any sort of trade tariffs based on non-compliance with labor standards and such - it would just be shot down by the WTO. We tried to put some limits on the importation of steel products to offset the labor differences between where steel is made in the US and where it is imported from and BAM, the WTO says no, no, no. I am sure the same thing would happen if we enacted any sort of trade barriers against prison labor, child labor, paying less than reasonable wages, etc.
The real question is can we tell the difference between climate change that we can do something about and climate change that we cannot?
It is all well and good to say "Gosh, those CO2 levels are really high", but I've seen nothing that says that a 90% cut in current CO2 emissions will result in less desertification or less flooding of coastal areas. Sure, there is a chance that this might fix the problem, but there is an equal chance that either (a) something much more drastic is required really soon or (b) nothing much we do is going to have an effect.
The assumption behind Kyoto is that we have the power to redirect the climate. Interesting assumption, almost religious in its ferver. I see no proof that any human induced change is going to have much impact, especially something as weak as Kyoto.
Campaigns aren't financed by personal income. I believe there are even laws that prevent most people from putting $1 of their own money into their campaign - if they want any support from the current federal election system.
So everyone getting elected has to go begging to rich people and large corporations for money so they can get their name out.
If your software needs "services" and "support" in sufficient quantity to support you, then you are writing impossible-to-maintain junk that is at best customized for each user. At worst, it breaks everytime someone tries to use it and they have become dependent on it so they have to pay you to fix it.
Proper software tools need almost no support, little documentation and works out of the box without a lot of customization that can only be done by the author.
Maybe it is different kinds of software, but mostly I have seen the two kinds mentioned here: junk and quality. I won't even say that "quality" is attained - it is perhaps more of a goal to be sought after. It you really make it there, then you end up losing everything to piracy.
Intelligent bank robbers do not use guns. They might have a gun, but they don't need to even point it at someone.
All banks in the US operate under the rules if someone comes in and demands money, give it to them. Period.
Now, if you come in and wave a gun around, you might draw some attention to yourself and give the security guard reason to try to stop you before you hurt someone. But plenty of people walk in, hand a note to the teller and walk out with cash. And step right out into the waiting arms of the police.
Why? Because it is your content, and if you want to distribute it, you should be paying to do so. What you are doing, if your material is shared, is distributing your legitimate bandwidth and infrastructure costs among a bunch of relatively unsuspecting users.
This would be roughly equivalent of a band distributing a sample through Kazaa along with an 800 number to purchase the full track. Their advertising, their material, other people's bandwidth.
The question should be, why do we use sooo much damn energy.
There is an answer - sustainable existance. You live like a Bangladeshi farmer and you would use less energy. You might also only live to be 45 or so, leaving a lot more room for children and their future.
The livestyle of the Bangladeshi farmer doesn't appeal to you? Well, then there is your answer. High-energy lifestyles imply that resources are being used to provide them. Where are we going to get our resources from? Well, we should start looking at the answer for that - we already know what the answer is, we just need to formulate the will to implement it. How much Uranium is on Mars? The asteroids? Moons of Jupiter like Io and such? Come on, folks humanity is too important to keep all our eggs in one basket.
The alternative is a lot fewer of us folks and everyone gets to live like Bangladeshi farmers. I have reasonable estimates that we could live perfectly sustainable lives with natural processes recycling all wastes if there were about 50 million people on the planet. Maybe with some technology we might be able to squeeze 100 million, but that is. Today, there are upwards of 6 billion people on the planet. There are four options that I am aware of:
50-100 million people leave "sustainable" lives with reasonable comfort.
6 billion (and more coming every minute) people live like Bangladeshi farmers. Short, unproductive lives at that.
We run out of resources. Sooner or later, if we do nothing this could happen. Like it or not, the planet isn't really capable of sustaining 6 billion people. And more are being born every minute.
We go elsewhere to get what we need.
I think we need to start planning for the last alternative in that list. Real soon. Failure to plan means that one of the other three take us over, possibly as a big surprise to some unforward-looking people. This isn't something that "liberal", "conservative", "left" or "right" is going to be able to ignore.
Unless they really like the idea of killing off 6.3 billion people so 100 million can live in relative comfort.
The problem is that if marriage was simply an arrangement between two people that live together, there would be no issue.
But, its not that at all. Or at least it is a whole lot more than just that.
You have special rights, privileges and responsibilities when you are married. The government (federal, state and local) is involved in every single one of those rights, privileges and responsibilities. So there is no getting away from the government being involved.
I think that is the primary problem with this for most people.
What are you going to do on Wednesday if Bush wins? Even better, what are you going to do on January 20th?
From what I have seen, this site is about 80/20 in favor of removing Bush and maybe 60/40 in favor of Kerry, at best. OK, so let's assume Bush wins, or at least is declared winner in time for January 20th. What are you going to do?
The usual post-60's liberal "progressive" answer is... well, nothing. Is that what you are planning? Come on now, at least 40% of the country is actively against Bush. What would happen if 5 million people showed up on the Mall for the inaguration ceremony? To protest, to stop it, to prevent Bush from taking office? Are there no liberal progressives out there with any stomach for what they believe in? Or, is this all a fantasy Internet game where everyone goes home after the election with "well, we tried." and forgets about it until Hillary runs in 2008?
Come on, this country has gotten entirely too boring. If Kerry wins I am sure we are going to see some excitement - because Kerry will take a poll before deciding which side of the bed to get out of in the morning and will "defend" against terrorism by saying we would put them on trial if only we could catch them. Absolute prescription for some interesting times.
On the other hand, if Bush wins I will be truely saddened to see all the liberal progressive whiners crawling back into their holes to wait for the next election where "they can make a difference."
It is provable that the Internet is a consequences-free zone. Even if there is a law against it, it probably isn't going to be enforced. If it is enforced, I can always say they aren't going to catch me. If I am caught, wow, I get a fine. Maybe.
Laws don't carry any weight at all on the Internet.
Why would you ever even ask a question from a vendor you don't trust?
See, that is the problem. If you don't trust the vendor, forget it - don't do business with them. Until we can assume that all vendors are trustworthy, we have a mess that looks like,... well, it looks like the Internet does today.
Except we saw with Clinton that a poll was necessary to determine which side of the bed he got up on.
Kerry seems like that as well and should he win we can expect another four years of constant poll-watching to make sure he is pursuing a popular policy. Clinton didn't utter a single word that wasn't popular, and neither will Kerry.
Sometimes, a leader has to follow an unpopular policy because it is necessary. He has to LEAD, not follow opinions of the masses.
OK, so the vendors are turning off Bluetooth. Why? Because they are mean? I don't believe so. Verizon has un-enabled their current Bluetooth phone from doing anything except using a headset or car kit. Why? Security.
Bluetooth hijacking was all over a while back. So now that is fixed, right? We have a new "Secure Bluetooth" that prevents all of those problems? I don't think so.
While Bluetooth might be handy for some things, having it full-on enabled in phones and PDAs is an open invite to hijackers and other folks to just come on by and steal. With a phone they might get just your phone book and call log. With a PDA unless you lock everything up they are going to get your life. And nobody I know locks everything up.
I think Bluetooth is an interesting idea, but it was designed in a security vacuum. Verizon does not want the customer support headaches from having it as a new gateway to problems.
Palm runs one app at a time, so any SSH client is going to be running when you are using it and switching away stops the SSH client.
You would have to have a completely new animal, sort of a TSR kind of thing that would add a new networking layer. Since none of the SSH clients support this and most say it can't be done, I suspect it would be really, really hard. Hard enough that nobody thinks it is worthwhile.
Allowing ANYONE who happen to be behind your firewall access to a service is stupid. The right thing to do is to secure the service with passwords regardless of who or what uses it. Viewing all networks as public and securing properly according to this is much better than the old firewall approach.
Nice thought. Except the Internet is currently populated by significant numbers of people that want to either (a) steal anything they can lay their hands on or (b) cause as much damage and chaos as possible.
The folks in category (a) want your bank account, credit cards, bandwidth and anything else. They also have more time on their hands than you do, so they are going to win if you give them an opening. Passwords? What century are you living in? If you have high speed 24x7 access to a network how long is it really going to take to run through a 16 character password guesser? A month, maybe. Then you are owned.
The folks in category (b) tend to be script kiddies, so you just better make sure that whatever services are exposed are completely safe. What? You can't guarantee there isn't an exploit for your AP, your router, Linux, Windows XP and anything else on your network? Ooops - if you don't have that guarantee you are taking a big risk at running a zombie that could put you in big legal trouble.
Would it be a nice friendly place if everyone "shared"? Sure. Tell the script kiddies and thieves to move to another planet - or at least a different Internet - and we can all hold hands and share. Until then, consider using all of the security features at your disposal. First, you gotta guess what is open on the MAC filter, then crack WEP and then guess some passwords. Am I safe? I don't think so, not completely. I'd like to be a lot safer than I am.
We emptied the mental institutions because there was a general concensus at the time that these people were being abused by being kept in an institution. It was much cheaper to keep them locked away somewhere than it was to dump them out on the street and then try to clean up the mess. But, the decision was made that somehow it was unfair to these people to lock them away.
Now, mental institutions have never been one of my favorite places to visit, and especially not as an inmate. However, did we really do these people a service? I think not. However, this was absolutely not a case of "shrinking social programs" - this was all about liberating the mentally ill. Look where it got us.
Why is it on an endcap in BestBuy? Because somebody paid. An endcap there probably costs around $30,000 or maybe as high as $50,000 - I don't know for CDs but software it can easily be that high.
You want your stuff to be sold in BestBuy? Be prepared to pay them for the shelf space. It costs some software publishers $100,000 just to get in the door.
They tried that with drugs. Those nasty US consumers figured out that if they could get cheaper drugs from Canada, they might as well do just that.
If they sold the stuff cheaper in Russia, there would be a huge business importing stuff from Russia into the US and some folks would be making incredible amounts of money.
Absolutely. The US is famous for siting police barracks next to crippled children's hospitals so the drug runners kill the little children when attacking the police, er, stormtroopers.
And the National Guard, you know they are just a military-force-in-waiting getting ready any day now to take over the civilian government and enforce the 2nd term of George Jr. Because their facilities are next to schoolyards, hospitals and such the rightous left militias that we have been hearing so much about lately will be unable to strike at the center of this for fear of civilian deaths.
What people suspect is that there is a middle man in there who is adding considerably to the cost who is not adding correspondingly to the value.
Because they have no understanding of what the value being added is. Without promotion, marketing and distribution there would be nothing that you would hear about except maybe by hearing a performance at a local bar. There would be no airplay on the radio, or at least it would be so restricted as to eliminate anything "new". There wouldn't be anything that resembles the current music marketplace.
If you believe all of this can be replaced by people suring the web, well maybe. Except not everybody has a broadband connection - you are leaving out 40-50% of the US and probably at least 40-50% of the world. We aren't there yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Why did oil drop by $10 a barrel in the last few weeks? Did the scarcity suddenly end? Why do gas prices in the US seem to reflect the oil futures market when the real price for the oil refined into gasoline lags the futures market by at least three or four months? The answer is that none of these prices has any real foundation in costs or expenses. The prices are determined by a futures market where traders are playing off each other. Someone buys a contract for March delivery and can then sell it for $0.001 a barrel more than they bought it for and they make a few thousand dollars. Magnify this by hundreds of traders on the 10 or 20 commodity exchanges and you get the idea of how this is really controlled.
Sure, OPEC can try to put a floor under this, and they have in the past. But they have no control over the upper limit - that is set by the traders. And, like all traders (or gamblers), they are ruled by their emotions rather than logic. This means that while Iraq is sitting unable to deliver any oil this must mean that people will pay more for it in a few months - so the March contract must be worth more. Right.
Of course, that is assuming that dumping trash and sewage in the ocean is a crime. It isn't. New York dumps their trash in the ocean.
So the first step is to get dumping garbage in the ocean made into a crime. Unfortunately, if you do it in International waters, who has jurisdiction? Nobody does, that's the whole point. So I guess the first step is the formation of a world government that trumps the sovernity of all nations so that they can declare dumping trash in the ocean (in International waters) is a crime.
If you believe that some small fraction of the Iraqi population is just trying to defend their homes from ruthless invaders, well, what about the rest of the people there? Why isn't this resistance universal? How come there are so few "defending" and why do they kill other Iraqi civilians while "defending" their homes?
How about there is a small fraction of the population that wants to oppress the others and don't care if some of those others get killed in the process. They have been in power for 40 years or so because we put them there and it is about time we cleaned up our mess. The US is finally taking responsibility for putting a madman in power in Iraq and stomping out his fellow travelers that had a piece of the action before.
As to Iraq threatening people, sure - while the sanctions were in place they were shooting at US and UK planes patrolling the no-fly zone. They had lots of preparations for the sanctions being over with and lots of folks in EU ready and willing to sell them all sorts of weapons and chemicals to wreak havoc on Israel and their other neighbors. Threats? No, of course you are correct - Iraq was no threat to the US as long as we don't trade with anybody and keep on our side of the oceans. That might be the better solution, but I don't see it getting implemented anytime soon. So, yes, they were a threat to the stability of the region and to the credibility of the UN.
What does that mean? Life on planet Earth isn't sustainable at the current population level at anything near the current lifestyle enjoyed by most people in industrialized nations.
We have some really hard choices coming up:
- Reduce the population. Drastically - like to a worldwide level of maybe 100 million people.
- Accept a lifestyle more in line with a Bangladeshi farmer for everyone on the planet. You don't get to use any energy you didn't produce.
- Start planning on the survival of the human race based on getting resources from places other than just Earth. And start doing something about this soon.
Of course, the last item is the one that makes sense - we're not going to do either of the other two. Unfortunately, until we get over the "it might be dangerous" we need to start making people understand the other two alternatives do really exist.Come on, folks, can't you see that waste products are being created at a rate faster than they are naturally recycled? What does that mean?
So, sorry, relief isn't coming from there.
It is all well and good to say "Gosh, those CO2 levels are really high", but I've seen nothing that says that a 90% cut in current CO2 emissions will result in less desertification or less flooding of coastal areas. Sure, there is a chance that this might fix the problem, but there is an equal chance that either (a) something much more drastic is required really soon or (b) nothing much we do is going to have an effect.
The assumption behind Kyoto is that we have the power to redirect the climate. Interesting assumption, almost religious in its ferver. I see no proof that any human induced change is going to have much impact, especially something as weak as Kyoto.
So everyone getting elected has to go begging to rich people and large corporations for money so they can get their name out.
But I'll post it anyway.
If your software needs "services" and "support" in sufficient quantity to support you, then you are writing impossible-to-maintain junk that is at best customized for each user. At worst, it breaks everytime someone tries to use it and they have become dependent on it so they have to pay you to fix it.
Proper software tools need almost no support, little documentation and works out of the box without a lot of customization that can only be done by the author.
Maybe it is different kinds of software, but mostly I have seen the two kinds mentioned here: junk and quality. I won't even say that "quality" is attained - it is perhaps more of a goal to be sought after. It you really make it there, then you end up losing everything to piracy.
All banks in the US operate under the rules if someone comes in and demands money, give it to them. Period.
Now, if you come in and wave a gun around, you might draw some attention to yourself and give the security guard reason to try to stop you before you hurt someone. But plenty of people walk in, hand a note to the teller and walk out with cash. And step right out into the waiting arms of the police.
Bank robbery is not usually a "violent" crime.
I don't see any coming, either. Of course, this might just be a trick to prevent a big one that MS knows could come, but I doubt it.
This would be roughly equivalent of a band distributing a sample through Kazaa along with an 800 number to purchase the full track. Their advertising, their material, other people's bandwidth.
There is an answer - sustainable existance. You live like a Bangladeshi farmer and you would use less energy. You might also only live to be 45 or so, leaving a lot more room for children and their future.
The livestyle of the Bangladeshi farmer doesn't appeal to you? Well, then there is your answer. High-energy lifestyles imply that resources are being used to provide them. Where are we going to get our resources from? Well, we should start looking at the answer for that - we already know what the answer is, we just need to formulate the will to implement it. How much Uranium is on Mars? The asteroids? Moons of Jupiter like Io and such? Come on, folks humanity is too important to keep all our eggs in one basket.
The alternative is a lot fewer of us folks and everyone gets to live like Bangladeshi farmers. I have reasonable estimates that we could live perfectly sustainable lives with natural processes recycling all wastes if there were about 50 million people on the planet. Maybe with some technology we might be able to squeeze 100 million, but that is. Today, there are upwards of 6 billion people on the planet. There are four options that I am aware of:
- 50-100 million people leave "sustainable" lives with reasonable comfort.
- 6 billion (and more coming every minute) people live like Bangladeshi farmers. Short, unproductive lives at that.
- We run out of resources. Sooner or later, if we do nothing this could happen. Like it or not, the planet isn't really capable of sustaining 6 billion people. And more are being born every minute.
- We go elsewhere to get what we need.
I think we need to start planning for the last alternative in that list. Real soon. Failure to plan means that one of the other three take us over, possibly as a big surprise to some unforward-looking people. This isn't something that "liberal", "conservative", "left" or "right" is going to be able to ignore.Unless they really like the idea of killing off 6.3 billion people so 100 million can live in relative comfort.
But, its not that at all. Or at least it is a whole lot more than just that.
You have special rights, privileges and responsibilities when you are married. The government (federal, state and local) is involved in every single one of those rights, privileges and responsibilities. So there is no getting away from the government being involved.
I think that is the primary problem with this for most people.
From what I have seen, this site is about 80/20 in favor of removing Bush and maybe 60/40 in favor of Kerry, at best. OK, so let's assume Bush wins, or at least is declared winner in time for January 20th. What are you going to do?
The usual post-60's liberal "progressive" answer is ... well, nothing. Is that what you are planning? Come on now, at least 40% of the country is actively against Bush. What would happen if 5 million people showed up on the Mall for the inaguration ceremony? To protest, to stop it, to prevent Bush from taking office? Are there no liberal progressives out there with any stomach for what they believe in? Or, is this all a fantasy Internet game where everyone goes home after the election with "well, we tried." and forgets about it until Hillary runs in 2008?
Come on, this country has gotten entirely too boring. If Kerry wins I am sure we are going to see some excitement - because Kerry will take a poll before deciding which side of the bed to get out of in the morning and will "defend" against terrorism by saying we would put them on trial if only we could catch them. Absolute prescription for some interesting times.
On the other hand, if Bush wins I will be truely saddened to see all the liberal progressive whiners crawling back into their holes to wait for the next election where "they can make a difference."
Laws don't carry any weight at all on the Internet.
See, that is the problem. If you don't trust the vendor, forget it - don't do business with them. Until we can assume that all vendors are trustworthy, we have a mess that looks like, ... well, it looks like the Internet does today.
Kerry seems like that as well and should he win we can expect another four years of constant poll-watching to make sure he is pursuing a popular policy. Clinton didn't utter a single word that wasn't popular, and neither will Kerry.
Sometimes, a leader has to follow an unpopular policy because it is necessary. He has to LEAD, not follow opinions of the masses.
Bluetooth hijacking was all over a while back. So now that is fixed, right? We have a new "Secure Bluetooth" that prevents all of those problems? I don't think so.
While Bluetooth might be handy for some things, having it full-on enabled in phones and PDAs is an open invite to hijackers and other folks to just come on by and steal. With a phone they might get just your phone book and call log. With a PDA unless you lock everything up they are going to get your life. And nobody I know locks everything up.
I think Bluetooth is an interesting idea, but it was designed in a security vacuum. Verizon does not want the customer support headaches from having it as a new gateway to problems.
You would have to have a completely new animal, sort of a TSR kind of thing that would add a new networking layer. Since none of the SSH clients support this and most say it can't be done, I suspect it would be really, really hard. Hard enough that nobody thinks it is worthwhile.
Nice thought. Except the Internet is currently populated by significant numbers of people that want to either (a) steal anything they can lay their hands on or (b) cause as much damage and chaos as possible.
The folks in category (a) want your bank account, credit cards, bandwidth and anything else. They also have more time on their hands than you do, so they are going to win if you give them an opening. Passwords? What century are you living in? If you have high speed 24x7 access to a network how long is it really going to take to run through a 16 character password guesser? A month, maybe. Then you are owned.
The folks in category (b) tend to be script kiddies, so you just better make sure that whatever services are exposed are completely safe. What? You can't guarantee there isn't an exploit for your AP, your router, Linux, Windows XP and anything else on your network? Ooops - if you don't have that guarantee you are taking a big risk at running a zombie that could put you in big legal trouble.
Would it be a nice friendly place if everyone "shared"? Sure. Tell the script kiddies and thieves to move to another planet - or at least a different Internet - and we can all hold hands and share. Until then, consider using all of the security features at your disposal. First, you gotta guess what is open on the MAC filter, then crack WEP and then guess some passwords. Am I safe? I don't think so, not completely. I'd like to be a lot safer than I am.
Now, mental institutions have never been one of my favorite places to visit, and especially not as an inmate. However, did we really do these people a service? I think not. However, this was absolutely not a case of "shrinking social programs" - this was all about liberating the mentally ill. Look where it got us.
You want your stuff to be sold in BestBuy? Be prepared to pay them for the shelf space. It costs some software publishers $100,000 just to get in the door.
If they sold the stuff cheaper in Russia, there would be a huge business importing stuff from Russia into the US and some folks would be making incredible amounts of money.
And the National Guard, you know they are just a military-force-in-waiting getting ready any day now to take over the civilian government and enforce the 2nd term of George Jr. Because their facilities are next to schoolyards, hospitals and such the rightous left militias that we have been hearing so much about lately will be unable to strike at the center of this for fear of civilian deaths.
Really.
Because they have no understanding of what the value being added is. Without promotion, marketing and distribution there would be nothing that you would hear about except maybe by hearing a performance at a local bar. There would be no airplay on the radio, or at least it would be so restricted as to eliminate anything "new". There wouldn't be anything that resembles the current music marketplace.
If you believe all of this can be replaced by people suring the web, well maybe. Except not everybody has a broadband connection - you are leaving out 40-50% of the US and probably at least 40-50% of the world. We aren't there yet.