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Better than Free (2008)

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Re: Better than Free (2008)

#11

Post by Mz »

ptr_void wrote: post #10
amelius wrote: post #7

Immediacy -- who really needs it? I mean, for a movie, just wait a few months and you can download it. If you don't want to wait, you still have to wait for the next movie to come out, so it makes no difference really. To say it another way: no matter where you are in the pipeline, you still have to wait the same amount of time for new data to arrive.

'need' : no 'preference' : yes The whole entertainment industry can go away over the next month, it wouldn't matter much. But most would prefer it didn't. There's also more than enough movies/tv shows/sports recordings/music etc for anyone's lifetime, but most would prefer to see newer ones. Enough people can afford their preference to have new ones produced every day.

The Roman policy of "bread and circus" helped prevent rioting in the streets. I would much rather our resources go to entertainment than to more police and prisons.

So, I am happy to put entertainment in the category of need.

Re: Better than Free (2008)

#12

Post by gkya »

amelius wrote: post #7

Immediacy -- who really needs it? I mean, for a movie, just wait a few months and you can download it. If you don't want to wait, you still have to wait for the next movie to come out, so it makes no difference really. To say it another way: no matter where you are in the pipeline, you still have to wait the same amount of time for new data to arrive.

Nobody needs a movie. In most of the cases nobody really needs anything that they can wait for (except organ donors, etc.). It's just that whether people prefer to pay for certain pleasures or not. And getting to see a movie I want to see home before theatrical releases are done and finished is sth. I can pay (not all movies I want to see play in my city). People pay hundreds of dollars for things not even made yet on Kickstarter and the like, just to be early adopters.

Re: Better than Free (2008)

#14

Post by tokai »

m-j-fox wrote: post #9

> Even a dog knows you can’t erase something once it’s flowed on the internet. False. Dogs do not know anything about digital technology. Dogs barely understand dog leashes.

It is probably a reference to the "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

Re: Better than Free (2008)

#16

Post by coldtea »

amelius wrote: post #7

Immediacy -- who really needs it? I mean, for a movie, just wait a few months and you can download it. If you don't want to wait, you still have to wait for the next movie to come out, so it makes no difference really. To say it another way: no matter where you are in the pipeline, you still have to wait the same amount of time for new data to arrive.

>Immediacy -- who really needs it?

Needs it? Nobody. Who wants its? Billions.

But nobody really needs music and movies either.

>I mean, for a movie, just wait a few months and you can download it.

You must be new to earth.

>If you don't want to wait, you still have to wait for the next movie to come out, so it makes no difference really.

No, it really does make a difference. Waiting for something that isn't yet available is acceptable (and in any case, inevitable). Waiting for something that it's out already is not acceptable to most people.

Re: Better than Free (2008)

#17

Post by jancsika »

tokai wrote: post #14
m-j-fox wrote: post #9

> Even a dog knows you can’t erase something once it’s flowed on the internet. False. Dogs do not know anything about digital technology. Dogs barely understand dog leashes.

It is probably a reference to the "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

That may be true, but the further the reference gets from the original context, the more likely it becomes an appeal to authority that ends up misleading people instead of enlightening them.

Here are some important examples of quite powerful entities that do not accept the logic that you can't erase something once it's flowed on the internet: the RIAA, MPAA, DEA, various (most?) middle eastern countries, Great Britain (through the influence of the GCHQ), Mastodon servers located in Germany (see their ToS regarding holocaust denial), whitehouse.gov and various other sites that erase public statements after their criticism goes viral, various entities trying to shut down sci-hub (who will probably eventually succeed), and Barbara Streisand.

Taken together, these entities can make it practically impossible for non-technical people to access data that has a $0 marginal cost. So it's misleading to flippantly refer to the New Yorker cartoon's implication of general equalizing power of the internet as part of a fundamental critique of business models built around publishing data that has $0 marginal cost.

In that context, the comment by m-j-fox-- while maybe low effort-- serves an important function of undercutting the low effort premise upon which the article under discussion depends. Thus I give this higher effort defense of said comment.

edit: clarification

Re: Better than Free (2008)

#18

Post by coldtea »

Mz wrote: post #11
ptr_void wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'need' : no 'preference' : yes The whole entertainment industry can go away over the next month, it wouldn't matter much. But most would prefer it didn't. There's also more than enough movies/tv shows/sports recordings/music etc for anyone's lifetime, but most would prefer to see newer ones. Enough people can afford their preference to have new ones produced every day.

The Roman policy of "bread and circus" helped prevent rioting in the streets. I would much rather our resources go to entertainment than to more police and prisons. So, I am happy to put entertainment in the category of need.

You seem to have gotten the lesson of bread and circuses backwards. It's not meant to be understood as a good thing.

It was meant maintain a docile public that's easily manipulated, taken advantage of and ordered around, as long as it was given enough food to eat and BS arena shows to distract it.

Rioting against scum like Nero (and modern equivalents) would have been the good and democratic option.

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