Is it just me or was this very confusing to read? In some spots I thought it was written by a bot or generated by a gpt3 script.
License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
11–20 of 32 posts
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#12My 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?
I actually think you could get some excellent investigative journalism from subject matter experts working part time.
But yes, that is one of the few areas where you still need permanent full-time people.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#13My 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…
I think you might have missed a fifth: paid with passion.
Whether it nets as much long-term happiness or food in your mouth is free to debate, but I think a lot of people are just content with the idea of creating something they wanted.
I think you see this a lot in OSS (linux, git, gnu) as well as e.g. the video games industry.
I don't think it's a particularly sustainable way to get paid, but it can exit into the other 4 you mentioned.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#14It's annoying that the author takes the original article about paywalls by Nathan Robinson so literally at some points.
For example, the Robinson wrote "Creators must be compensated well. But at the same time we have to try to keep things that are important and profound from getting locked away where few people will see them." To which the commenter replied "None of the above is true." Then explains that only some creators and some works should be compensated well. As if it wasn't clear that the Robinson was referring to creators and works that he felt was of value.
In rebuttal, he only provides his opinion that "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." without any evidence that is the case for journalism (or even software for that matter). Not even a weak "logical" argument.
Perhaps he's right, perhaps he's not. I don't know, it it's annoying that this response has somehow hit #2 on HN. It's as weak as this post :-)
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#15My 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…
I think you might have missed a fifth: paid with passion. Whether it nets as much long-term happiness or food in your mouth is free to debate, but I think a lot of people are just content with the idea of creating something they wanted. I think you see this a lot in OSS (linux, git, gnu) as well as e.g. the video games industry. I don't think it's a particularly sustainable way to get paid, but it can exit into the o…
Quite true.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#16This 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.
Well said.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#17I 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 think he's saying
"Build it and they will come."
or
"The universe will provide..."
and sometimes, it does. Like in Wayne's World.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#18I 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.
I think the author's point is inferable from these two observations.
> Creators needn’t be compensated well just because they are creators.
> Neither must useful works of every kind cost nothing to everyone.
Obviously this author knows that if poor quality cheap information proliferates and high quality information remains costly then people will prefer the former to the later.
The author is effecting a denial of the implicit argument of the "post truth" panic, which is that it is important that the public have a high quality and cheap information source.
It's not utterly unreasonable to argue against an assumed premise such as this but it would've been nice if they had been a bit clearer about it.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#19Powerful sentence.
Re: License Zero: Comments on “The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free”
#20Is it just me or was this very confusing to read? In some spots I thought it was written by a bot or generated by a gpt3 script.
I think it may be a deliberate example of poor quality writing that should not be compensated.