License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
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License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
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Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#2That's quite some hand-waving. If news organizations (like newspapers) give away their content for free, they lay off staff. We know this because we've seen it happen in newsrooms around the country as Craigslist dried up newspapers' primary source of revenue.
So this seems either false or completely irrelevant to the topic at hand: "I happen to believe that in most areas of creative work, and in most adjacent industries, giving more away for $0 online would improve outcomes for most players, overall."
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#3The author is so very close to realizing that intellectual property is incoherent in the fact of information theory, and also that universal basic income is an essential component of a hyperwealthy neoliberal democracy. We could be a culture of creators, with every person having a relatively small but fluid audience who supplements their income and contributes to their work, but no starving artist dependent on their employer for their living wage.
As the slogan goes, "All of our grievances are connected: Eat the rich."
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#4My view of work is that you can be paid in 4 ways:
1. Paid in cash.
2. Paid in power.
3. Paid in social status.
4. Paid in deferred career benefit.
Because of the reach of content with the internet, the pay in categories 2 and 4 has gone up. It depends on what you do, but pay in category 3 may also have increased. Unsurprisingly the cash pay is going to decline.
In my own case, I write a fair bit. I gain career benefits. I gain contacts from Hacker News as I write under my own name. There are friends who find it cool that I am published on Stack Overflow. I have a regular software engineering job, so the money now is not a priority.
Eventually most content creation is just going to be supported by people doing other things to earn a living. Only deep investigative journalism would require someone to earn a full time living doing it.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#5I really can't tell what they're trying to say here.
> giving more away for $0 online would improve outcomes
> there is nothing inherently worse about paying a fee
Aren't these contradictory? Is the author taking any position?
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#6I don't understand what this is even about? They didn't bother to get the original author's name right ("Nathan Robinson"), and they seem to be arguing with some strawman that every piece of creative output must be compensated? But there's no substance to that argument either, just a bald assertion that sometimes you don't get paid for things?
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#7This doesn't seem to address the problem outlined in the original article. It seems to be arguing that people shouldn't be paid for lousy work, but that isn't at all what the original article was talking about.
Being rich inherently gives one a voice, being right does not. If the truth is inconvenient to the rich then it will face an uphill battle against the well funded lies.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#8My view of work is that you can be paid in 4 ways: 1. Paid in cash. 2. Paid in power. 3. Paid in social status. 4. Paid in deferred career benefit. Because of the reach of content with the internet, the pay in categories 2 and 4 has gone up. It depends on what you do, but pay in category 3 may also have increased. Unsurprisingly the cash pay is going to decline. In my own case, I write a fair bit. I gain career benef…
> Eventually most content creation is just going to be supported by people doing other things to earn a living.
That's fine for many types of content, but do we really want world news and investigative journalism to be done exclusively by amateurs with no resources?
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#9I really can't tell what they're trying to say here. > giving more away for $0 online would improve outcomes > there is nothing inherently worse about paying a fee Aren't these contradictory? Is the author taking any position?
The author is generally in favour of free content and argues that it is good for both the consumer (as there is no hassle) and the content creator as there are other avenues for earning money.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#10I don't understand what this is even about? They didn't bother to get the original author's name right ("Nathan Robinson"), and they seem to be arguing with some strawman that every piece of creative output must be compensated? But there's no substance to that argument either, just a bald assertion that sometimes you don't get paid for things?
> I don't understand what this is even about?
Agreed. I read the whole thing twice and couldn't identify any thesis.