Paul Graham has lost the plot • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#111

Post by gnaritas » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:10 PM UTC

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #35

drumdance wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Music existed, but not recording devices, microphones etc. There is a hard cost associated with all of those. Granted, those costs have come down over time, but the rental of a decent studio is not $0.

The cost of studio rental is irrelevant. What musicians want to be compensated for is the lifetime of study, dedication to a craft, years of poverty and uncertainty, risk of repetitive stress injuries, etc.

And they do, whenever they perform those skills for an audience. The market doesn't pay for effort, it pays for things people want.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#112

Post by jbigelow76 » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:10 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #98

jbigelow76 wrote: post #70

Why does YCombinator deserve equity (value) from successes of the YC program, these are internet companies, aren't msot of the company's benefits intangible "smells" much like music? Wait. Let me guess... because they invested, so they deserve to profit right? So somebody please explain to me why the media industries are different. If anybody thinks music is free please go price out studio time before replying.

I just turned on my laptop and hit the record button. And the other day, I turned on a $20 tape recorder. Perhaps you should expand your ideas of what constitutes publishable music.

If you get somebody to pay for either one of your masterpieces feel free to post sales numbers.

Edit: And perhaps you should expand on why YC deserves value from its investments and other industries do not. That's more important than either of our snarkiness.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#113

Post by angersock » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:10 PM UTC

jbigelow76 wrote: post #99

angersock wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$400 dollars for a full day of recording ( http://www.inthejarstudios.com/rates.htm ). I have to pay for my own woodworking tools and computers, but I don't expect people to subsidize me in my hobby. And if I decided to go pro--which in the case of computers I have--I would make sure I only make things the market wants, and not take on shitty contracts signing away future sale equity until some vaguely defined point…

Subsidizing a hobby is not an accurate analogy. Is a doctor practicing medicine for pay subsidizing their hobby or are they trying to derive value from their efforts? Just because somebody may enjoy what they do to produce that value doesn't mean it de facto becomes "free".

Until you make money because people are willing to pay for what you have and will do so even in the presence of cheaper alternatives, yeah, it's a hobby.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#114

Post by davidw » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:12 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #88

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…

couldn't charge for their creations but of course people do charge for open-source code to be made. IBM, RedHat, the US National Security Agency, Canonical, DARPA, Google, etc. all pay for open source code to be written. If the programmers weren't allowed to charge for their code, a lot less code would be written.

> IBM, RedHat, the US National Security Agency, Canonical, DARPA, Google, etc. all pay for open source code to be written.

IBM: sells tons of proprietary software.

Redhat: genuine open source deal. Legit example.

Government: money comes from taxes. I don't think I fancy a world where information goods are mostly paid for through taxes.

Google: makes most of their money from the proprietary bits of their software.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#115

Post by batista » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:12 PM UTC

Graham draws a comparison between the ridiculous situation of a shop owner wanting to charge passers-by for smelling the delicious cooking smells coming from restaurant, and record companies going after people who’ve illegally downloaded music or movies. The supposed point of comparison is that ‘information is like air’ and can be freely transmitted, so it can’t be treated as the property of one party.

If PG is making that point, it's stupid. How about someone stealing his ViaWeb source back in the day before the Yahoo acquisition? (Actually, it wouldn't even be stealing, because he would still have the source himself).

Would he still be using that "information wants to be free" meme?

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#116

Post by aamar » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:12 PM UTC

rdw wrote: post #11

It bugs me that we haven't moved past "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations" in these discussions. It's an extreme strawman. No one -- not Graham, not Richard Stallman, not Julian Assange -- is interested in making it impossible to make money from creating stuff. Copyright is simply one means of accomplishing the end goal of paying creators, and certainly not the only one. I'd like to hea…

Copyright has on its side reams of academic literature and centuries of apparently successful implementation. Some alternate systems, like patronage, have been tried at relatively limited scales, but there are in general strong theoretical or evidentiary reasons to believe that none of those would produce as much media as we have today.

That doesn't mean that there isn't some better system out there, but I think the burden is on the copyright-dissenters to develop a theoretically sound alternative and implementation plan. Stallman's work in this area is incredible and inspiring, but there isn't, so far, nearly as much theory or evidence on that side (despite the work of Benkler et al.).

Meanwhile, low protectionists--like most people here, myself included--are frequently going to assume a version of the current system stays in place, while proposing tweaking some of the knobs (types of content covered, expiration, penalties, enforcement mechanisms, etc.).

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#117

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:13 PM UTC

grok2 wrote: post #104

redthrowaway wrote: post #81

The author, and the content industry in general, are misunderstanding basic economics: Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value . pg was right in pointing out that the content industry is built on the economics of scarcity, and that this scarcity no longer exists. You could charge someone to see a movie in a theatre when doing so was the only way to see the movie. You c…

Not sure why you call it economics of scarcity. The distributors want control over the distribution method to make sure they are paid for whatever they are distributing, not to create scarcity. If something is popular, won't distributors try and sell as much of it as is possible.

The distributors wish to control the scarcity of the copies of content. If there is an overflowing abundance of copies then their model of enforcing a 1:1 sale for every copy breaks down.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#118

Post by angersock » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #92

redthrowaway wrote: post #81

The author, and the content industry in general, are misunderstanding basic economics: Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value . pg was right in pointing out that the content industry is built on the economics of scarcity, and that this scarcity no longer exists. You could charge someone to see a movie in a theatre when doing so was the only way to see the movie. You c…

And you're misunderstanding economics too. Just because you can get it for free that does not mean there is no market for people paying for it. > Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value. What shows market value is the desire for that product. The only reason that music is pirated now (when it used to be purchased) is because it's easy and without consequence. Let's say…

And they are welcome to keep paying for it--as the rest of us download free copies.

As for convenience, I may find it more convenient to download music from TPB or a college FTP than from iTunes, because I don't want to deal with their installer or give away my billing info. Convenience is an utterly subjective measure.

(also, your car analogy is shitty and bad and you should feel shitty and bad)

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#119

Post by angersock » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #108

redthrowaway wrote: post #81

The author, and the content industry in general, are misunderstanding basic economics: Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value . pg was right in pointing out that the content industry is built on the economics of scarcity, and that this scarcity no longer exists. You could charge someone to see a movie in a theatre when doing so was the only way to see the movie. You c…

Content is scarce if you think not just about distribution, but creation. As a thought experiment, if no one earned anything off of information goods, at all, then fewer of them would be produced.

What? Are you unable to understand the difference between making a statement with unspecified assumptions, and making a crafted argument with carefully specified axioms and clear logical reasoning--while also noting obvious facts about the real-world implementation of the topic you debate?

How many songs/stories/etc. are dreamed up by kids and never published? How many love poems are written and not saved?

Content is far, far from scarce.

(also, that isn't a thought experiment you suggested: it was an assertion provided without reasoning.)

EDIT: Amended to better address inflammatory language.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#120

Post by guga31bb » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #92

redthrowaway wrote: post #81

The author, and the content industry in general, are misunderstanding basic economics: Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value . pg was right in pointing out that the content industry is built on the economics of scarcity, and that this scarcity no longer exists. You could charge someone to see a movie in a theatre when doing so was the only way to see the movie. You c…

And you're misunderstanding economics too. Just because you can get it for free that does not mean there is no market for people paying for it. > Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value. What shows market value is the desire for that product. The only reason that music is pirated now (when it used to be purchased) is because it's easy and without consequence. Let's say…

> If pirating music was impossible many people would return to paying for music

I think you've missed the parent's point. We have left the world where pirating is impossible. The question is how to deal with it. Thinking in unrealistic hypotheticals does little to inform the debate.