Paul Graham has lost the plot • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#51

Post by steve-howard » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC

seunosewa wrote: post #39

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

Where would Linux be without Windows and Mac OS X to borrow ideas from?

Moreover, much as I love it, most free software usually has a huge gap in usability and QA, because those are the boring parts of writing software.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#52

Post by sheraz » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

You cannot simply substitute software for music, literature, or film. It does not work that way.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#53

Post by notJim » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:43 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

> How much of the internet runs on it?

How many of the sites on the internet are open source though? A quick glance through the top 100 according to Alexa gives me 2 or 3 (wordpress and wikipedia, and really wordpress is more about the content, which is not open source, generally speaking.)

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#54

Post by ams6110 » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:45 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

Code creators can charge for their creations, though. They don't have to, but they can. And some significant portion of open contributors are paid for their contributions, if indirectly, by working as employees of organizations that contribute to or allow employees to work on those open source projects.

If nobody could get paid for writing code, there would be less of it. No question.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#55

Post by VMG » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:45 PM UTC

JDulin wrote: post #32

At first I wasn't sure if "Defining Property" was one of the most insightful essays I read in a long time, or lazy logic on Paul's part trying to protect the internet in the copyright debate. But I'm pretty sure Paul is talking about something important now. What he hits on is that there is no scarcity anymore. Media is reproduced and shared freely and instantly, because that is the nature of the internet. The 'pipes…

There was little scarcity before. The production costs of CDs and LPs were much lower than what they were priced in the shops.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#56

Post by anonymoushn » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:46 PM UTC

Androsynth wrote: post #43

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

On the other hand, how many iOS apps would there be if Apple wouldn't allow you to charge for them? It would still be an ok ecosystem, but not great like it is now.

Certainly people are certainly attracted to iOS dev because it produces money, but iOS users do not have to pay for apps. It is easy to get apps without paying for them, but Apple has made it very easy to pay for them. I doubt that the absence of copyright would significantly change the proportion of iOS users who use apps without paying for them.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#57

Post by guard-of-terra » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:46 PM UTC

ef4 wrote: post #17

laglad wrote: post #7

Doesn't it cost money to produce the smell? As pg mentioned, if on the moon, they charged for smells because they had a delivery mechanism to ration the smell to you, wouldn't that be accounted for in their value offering? The reason that point is important is because regardless of the value derived by the end user, it is the ability to extract value that counts for the producer. And when smell cannot be rationed, or…

> Doesn't it cost money to produce the smell? The author's point on this is that there's already a paying customer who covers the cost of producing the smell (by buying the meal). Which just goes to show you can't push a metaphor too far. I still agree more with PG's conclusion. It really is a strawman to claim that copyright is the only way to pay creators.

In fact it is so.

There's already a paying customer who receives meal: local distributors who the content is licensed to. They get exclusive rights to the content (meal).

Now, internet services receive smells: non-exclusive rights which are valid in some countries and not others, like cheese with holes.

Now there's this huge problem where I can't go to 99% of internet services and pay for music because they don't want my money because I live in a wrong country. This is what we'd call "smell", and while I would pay for "meal" (ability to use any music service in the world according to its pricing and model), I'm only offered "smell" (the suggestion to go elsewhere and figure a way to actually pay for stuff).

And this smell, I won't buy.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#58

Post by kahirsch » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:46 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

He said "there’d be less of it", not "there'd be none of it".

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#59

Post by VMG » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:47 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

Out of interest: are you in the software industry? How much of your work is open source?

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#60

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 6:47 PM UTC

tadfisher wrote: post #45

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

That the majority of Linux contributions are made by employees of companies that sell Linux nullifies your argument. Take that away, and Linux would not be near the state it is in today.

[deleted]