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A world where people pay for software

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Re: A world where people pay for software

#371

Post by martinsnow »

ForHackernews wrote: post #352
thorncorona wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same answer every leftist I've talked to says when I ask them who will run the garbage system, and who will clean the sewers.

C'mon, robots obviously! Cleaning sewers doesn't sound like any fun, but designing or remotely piloting a fatberg-blasting sewer shark bot? That sounds kickass!

But it the meantime while there exists no such robots, or while the prototypes get stuck downthere. Someone has to manually fetch them, and do the job. It's not very enticing and I don't think there will be many software engineers ready to suit up, to dig one out.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#372

Post by dingnuts »

smolder wrote: post #355
thorncorona wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same answer every leftist I've talked to says when I ask them who will run the garbage system, and who will clean the sewers.

I know it seems crazy on its face. And I'm sure those leftists you refer to didn't have a coherent concept of how such a system would actually work . There's no way we could just replace paychecks today with rations and social credits and have a functioning system. It'd be an extreme destabilizing change to a system we built incrementally over a long time to be self reinforcing. But I also have the view that people a…

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Re: A world where people pay for software

#373

Post by zer8k »

r00fus wrote: post #286
zer8k wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fusion 360 is one example off the top of my head.

I think I would agree for large traditional software companies like Autodesk or Adobe that charged large sums for software versions you typically don't update yearly (Creative Cloud), that a flat subscription model seems to be a bad fit. Probably less so for software you use daily or make your living off of.

I use a text editor daily. I see no revolutionary methods being added to text editing that could ever justify me paying monthly. Even something as simple as a calorie counter has a monthly charge for features that never change (MyFitnessPal).

Re: A world where people pay for software

#374

Post by nickff »

smolder wrote: post #355
thorncorona wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same answer every leftist I've talked to says when I ask them who will run the garbage system, and who will clean the sewers.

I know it seems crazy on its face. And I'm sure those leftists you refer to didn't have a coherent concept of how such a system would actually work . There's no way we could just replace paychecks today with rations and social credits and have a functioning system. It'd be an extreme destabilizing change to a system we built incrementally over a long time to be self reinforcing. But I also have the view that people a…

>"But I also have the view that people are very malleable and can conform to all sorts of social structures and belief systems."

This is another view common to most (Marxist) communists, the belief in society's ability to cultivate the 'socialist man'.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#375

Post by hutzlibu »

Niksko wrote: post #361
thorncorona wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same answer every leftist I've talked to says when I ask them who will run the garbage system, and who will clean the sewers.

Running the garbage system is a desk job largely I would expect. It might not be the most stimulating subject matter to you, but I think it's within the realm of possibility that you'd find people who found it an interesting system to manage. Cleaning the sewers sounds objectionable. I think you shouldn't discount the idea that in a societal structure that's different from ours you'd remove some of the social stigma…

"But at the same time, if you observed that very very few people wanted to clean sewers for whatever reason"

The reason might be, most people do not like to be in the literal shit of others? It comes with actual health hazards btw.

"and there wasn't enough supply to meet demand, then you invest more in technology that reduces the shortfall. As others suggested, automation"

But we ain't there yet at all. What do we do, till then?

The sewage needs to run 24 h and not only if someone feels like taking a look eventually.

And as for ordinary garbage: mostly it is not a desk job, but physical labour to touch and move hundreds of different dirty garbage bins every day.

Dealing with that shit, should always come with good compensation. (whether money or social credits or whatever currency is in use)

Re: A world where people pay for software

#376

Post by ilyt »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #332
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #306

Computers have an unprecedented ability to reproduce value for free. Programmers need a relatively fixed amount of resources to thrive. (The value of resources varies by location but we all need things like food, shelter, transportation, clothing, tools, etc etc) If we can find a way to make sure every person has what they need to thrive regardless of their income, programmers can open source all of their software an…

One problem is that most necessary projects aren’t fun, and most fun projects aren’t necessary. Does anyone design dishwashers as a hobby, as an easy example? How do you propose we motivate people to do work that isn’t fun? Currently the carrot of higher pay or ownership in a more valuable thing is doing that, so we would need something to replace it if that goes away.

I get the point that some jobs are boring and need actual materialistic motivation to be done but...

I'm absolutely sure someone would design one out of sheer annoyance with existing solution (if existing solution would be bad).

It would be interesting if system with very short copyright (say 3-5 years) would work. You'd still have leader's advantage for investing in development, but overall winner would be companies that can both innovate and fill the market and not just throw some ideas, patent them and live off people actually trying to implement them...

Re: A world where people pay for software

#377

Post by ilyt »

smolder wrote: post #340
pfannkuchen wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that most necessary projects aren’t fun, and most fun projects aren’t necessary. Does anyone design dishwashers as a hobby, as an easy example? How do you propose we motivate people to do work that isn’t fun? Currently the carrot of higher pay or ownership in a more valuable thing is doing that, so we would need something to replace it if that goes away.

There are potentially other carrots aside from material wealth that can motivate people to do unpleasant work. Currently it takes significant pay to get people to do certain important but thankless jobs. We could thank them. A legacy is important to many people. They may enjoy an immutable commemoration of their work, if they're secure in a material sense.

Sure, ask someone to shovel shit for 8h/day 5 days a week and see where your thanks will get you.

You might find one sucker, but not nearly enough

Re: A world where people pay for software

#378

Post by bee_rider »

derefr wrote: post #339
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #306

Computers have an unprecedented ability to reproduce value for free. Programmers need a relatively fixed amount of resources to thrive. (The value of resources varies by location but we all need things like food, shelter, transportation, clothing, tools, etc etc) If we can find a way to make sure every person has what they need to thrive regardless of their income, programmers can open source all of their software an…

Do you think there would be very many programmers in such a world? Personally, I think that a lot of people who right now go into programming "because it's a good career", would instead do things that are equally creative but also capture other things high on the Maslow hierarchy — e.g. fame. Personally, despite enthusiastically enjoying my programming career and puzzle-oriented problem-solving more generally, I'm st…

It is hard to guess what people would work on without needing to worry about money.

You might try your novel, and one of two things could happen:

You find out you love it, you write a really good novel, and society wins.

You try it, find out that the actual experience of writing a novel is a drag. No harm no foul, you move on and keep trying things until you find something you are really passionate about and good at, and society wins.

Maybe it is programming but you just need a more interesting program.

Re: A world where people pay for software

#379

Post by ilyt »

Niksko wrote: post #361
thorncorona wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same answer every leftist I've talked to says when I ask them who will run the garbage system, and who will clean the sewers.

Running the garbage system is a desk job largely I would expect. It might not be the most stimulating subject matter to you, but I think it's within the realm of possibility that you'd find people who found it an interesting system to manage. Cleaning the sewers sounds objectionable. I think you shouldn't discount the idea that in a societal structure that's different from ours you'd remove some of the social stigma…

> I think you shouldn't discount the idea that in a societal structure that's different from ours you'd remove some of the social stigma that comes from such a job.

I can see you haven't done any of jobs like that ever in your life. "Social stigma", lmao, that shit smells

> But at the same time, if you observed that very very few people wanted to clean sewers for whatever reason, and there wasn't enough supply to meet demand, then you invest more in technology that reduces the shortfall.

It's delusional to think every job that's undesirable but necessary could be automated and that it would be cheaper than ye olde good material compensation for doing something hard/unpleasant.

I mean, I'm all for it, but that won't happen to the level that would eliminate unpleasant jobs

Re: A world where people pay for software

#380

Post by ilyt »

rootusrootus wrote: post #357
thorncorona wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact same answer every leftist I've talked to says when I ask them who will run the garbage system, and who will clean the sewers.

How often do you talk to people this far to the left? I live in a family full of liberals and none of them even remotely think the world should operate this way. I think you could take every person in the US with ideology this far out to the left and put them in a single medium size stadium.

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