I Think Your App Should Be Free • Hacker News Board

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#171

Post by rick888 » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 3:22 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #78

dorian-graph wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who determines what is priced 'too highly'? Also, do people have a right to content/things created and sold by others? Whatever happened to going without? If we were talking about clean water, I can get behind saying every person has a right to it.. but with rights comes duties.. though when it comes to the latest TV shows and other things I must admit I'm a little indifferent. An example is here in Australia for the…

Who determines what is priced 'too highly'? The market. Also, do people have a right to content/things created and sold by others? Nope! But they steal it anyway. ("Bean counters said I couldn't fire a man just for being in a wheelchair. Did it anyway! Ramps are expensive!") Ultimately, I'd gladly pay for Netflix. But it doesn't work on any of my computers, so I just get better-quality stuff from Illegal Places inste…

"The market."

It does, but when you rely on a subset of the market that will never pay for your stuff anyway, the value is more than just a little skewed.

"Honey badger don't care, and neither do I."

Good. I don't like paying taxes because they are just too expensive..so I don't.

It's funny because when businesses do the same thing with workers (the american programmer is too expensive, so we just decided to hire from India), people get all upset.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#172

Post by randomdata » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 3:26 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #146

earbitscom wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing different about the plumber and the artist. The plumber comes to your house and leaves you with a working toilet. The artist goes to the studio and leaves you with a copy of a song. In both cases, you now have something of value created by another person. Both would like to be paid for their work. Last I checked, no artists are selling MP3s to consumers on a per stream royalty basis. They're asking f…

The difference is that the plumber fixes hundreds of sinks, the artist fixes one and then extracts rent from users. "Last I checked, no artists are selling MP3s to consumers on a per stream royalty basis. " Still, every time the record is aired in public (bars etc), royalties are paid. And even when selling to consumers, they'll sell a vinyl disk, then a cassette, then a cd, then an .mp3, then a .wtf... and every tim…

What if said plumber, instead of fixing each problem individually, develops a robot that will fix the problems on his behalf. Let's say, for argument's sake, that it costs $0.05 to operate the robot during the repair.

Should the plumber charge $0.05 + a small profit or should the plumber charge $0.05 + a large profit to offset the cost of developing the robot? Once the robot is available, it costs the plumber basically nothing to fix your problem, but it took the plumber a sizeable investment to create the robot in the first place.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#173

Post by rick888 » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 3:30 PM UTC

dools wrote: post #141

earbitscom wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing a shop owner who doesn't want to protect their investment because they're lazy to an artist who cannot prevent their product from being taken without being paid for, unless they want to make it unavailable in the format that all of their customers want it in. It's just sad that asking people to pay for things they take is being an idealist. I'm not angry. I just prefer to speak out against it than ac…

It's not so much that wanting people to pay is being an idealist, but that wanting things to be some way other than way they clearly are is being an idealist. In another, less sophisticated time, you would have found a reality not far removed from the shop owner I described - and they would not have been considered lazy. But a shop owner who railed against the shifting sands of humanity, pining for simpler times lost…

I'm good with this, if you and everyone else who believe this also agrees that if I use your source code in my proprietary app (no matter the license), it's just the "shifting sands of humanity".

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#174

Post by lwhi » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 3:31 PM UTC

rick888 wrote: post #168

lwhi wrote: post #110

The ideas inherent in selling any form of IP are not sustainable. Our economics are traditionally based on finite resources - and economics involving sale of intellectual property allows an infinite number of transactions. In my opinion, we can not expect to make money from the straightforward sale of any form of IP for much longer. New models are being developed and services industries are adapting to offer the valu…

"Our economics are traditionally based on finite resources" The finite resources aren't the final product, but the work that goes into it. Create Adobe Photoshop for me (not copy, but build from scratch). "this is where the future is heading" I no longer write applications. Everything I release is a service. In the past, there would have only been a one-time fee for my work, but now everyone needs to pay a monthly fe…

I completely agree.

Ultimately the most precious resource we have available is time - so I think that our economy should develop to a point where time is seen as the most valued currency.

--

"I no longer write applications. Everything I release is a service. In the past, there would have only been a one-time fee for my work, but now everyone needs to pay a monthly fee for it.

This is the result of piracy: monthly fees for everything."

I think that a service based model is fair - because there are ongoing costs associated with keeping software available. Maybe the only time this model falls down is when a service stagnates and isn't developed past it's initial release.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#175

Post by rick888 » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 3:34 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #97

FxChiP wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it's often a win if you stop fallaciously calculating every illegitimate copy as a loss of the sticker price." This really depends on how you define loss. In a standard legitimate sale of a product, there is a bidirectional exchange of value -- the customer submits currency whose total value is equivalent to the value requested for the product being purchased. Simultaneously, for submitting the currency of that valu…

Most people define loss as the difference in assumed outcomes between scenario #1 and the illegal scenario #2 - a business has never been entitled to the full value of a person's enjoyment of a product. That's why most people scoff at the amounts cited by the record labels.

"a business has never been entitled to the full value of a person's enjoyment of a product"

..and a user has never been entitled to the full enjoyment of a business's product. But it doesn't seem to stop articles like this from being written or large amounts of users to just steal it anyway.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#176

Post by davesims » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 3:50 PM UTC

earbitscom wrote: post #62

davesims wrote: post #59

If musicians had nearly as much stake in their distributed product, from a percent standpoint, as a startup founder has in his/her business, or if the music industry were remotely as equitable, all things considered, as the software industry, then the essay's apparent allegory might ring a little more true to me. But the practical reality is musicians don't have a similar stake, or a similar chance at making a sustai…

The simple fact is that most startup founders not only create the products that define their success, but drive that success almost entirely on their own, with modest help from their investors. As much as everyone likes to hate on record labels, the good ones do almost everything involved in the business of making your music successful. The artist is the product, but very rarely does the artist drive the business. Mo…

One shining example of a band that "gets it" is Pomplamoose. They may not be getting rich, but dammit they're making good music on their own terms and it looks like they're having a lot of fun doing it:

http://www.youtube.com/user/PomplamooseMusic

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#177

Post by hxa7241 » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 4:00 PM UTC

earbitscom wrote: post #118

toyg wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't "take" anything from anyone; I copy my Bieber, and you still have it. People who care about Bieber are still supporting him financially; people who don't, they wouldn't have bothered anyway. Since production and distribution costs have basically disappeared, supply is now virtually unlimited; economic theory tells us that the market price is now zero. Harsh reality, but that's the truth. Any law implemented t…

Economic theory ought to have taught you that there is more to bringing a product to market than how much is costs to duplicate that product after it's been invented. The scarcity of good music is real, and it’s not found in its distribution model. You’re neglecting to acknowledge the complexity of the process that goes into the creation of that product in the first place. Sure, you can duplicate an MP3 with next to…

> The scarcity of good music is real, and it’s not found in its distribution model.

If you can see this then why can you not see that absolute adherence to copyright is baseless?

Production -- effort, resources -- is scarce. Copies are not scarce. That means we should be paying for production, not copies. The ideal structure is: we pay producers the funds they need, and then let all copies of the product be freely available to all. Everyone producing is paid appropriately, and everyone can maximise the benefit. Is that entirely acheivable? Maybe not, but the point is it sets the upper bound on what we should be looking for.

Copyright only makes sense if there is no suitable alternative, and if it is not too onerous, wasteful, or counterproductive itself. The problem is that it is onerous, wasteful, and counterproductive now. The solution is not to keep hammering away at a dead old way of doing things, but to come up with good alternatives.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#178

Post by run4yourlives » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 4:13 PM UTC

rick888 wrote: post #171

jrockway wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who determines what is priced 'too highly'? The market. Also, do people have a right to content/things created and sold by others? Nope! But they steal it anyway. ("Bean counters said I couldn't fire a man just for being in a wheelchair. Did it anyway! Ramps are expensive!") Ultimately, I'd gladly pay for Netflix. But it doesn't work on any of my computers, so I just get better-quality stuff from Illegal Places inste…

"The market." It does, but when you rely on a subset of the market that will never pay for your stuff anyway, the value is more than just a little skewed. "Honey badger don't care, and neither do I." Good. I don't like paying taxes because they are just too expensive..so I don't. It's funny because when businesses do the same thing with workers (the american programmer is too expensive, so we just decided to hire fro…

>It does, but when you rely on a subset of the market that will never pay for your stuff anyway, the value is more than just a little skewed.

No, it means you have no market. Find a new one.

>Good. I don't like paying taxes because they are just too expensive..so I don't.

You - as a supplier - are not the government, and you don't have any inherent right to be in the particular business you are in.

>It's funny because when businesses do the same thing with workers (the american programmer is too expensive, so we just decided to hire from India), people get all upset.

Some people do, yes. Usually it is the same group that fail to understand the idea that the consumer - not the supplier - that defines the worth of a product. The American programmer is too expensive - in some definitions. That is why first world programmers add a hell of a lot of value over spec following developing world labour these days.

This is basic economics.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#179

Post by lacker » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 4:16 PM UTC

shabble wrote: post #16

kalvin wrote: post #14

I didn't recognize it as an allegory until halfway through, because jailbroken iPhones already have a very comprehensive free-cracked-app store, and I can only assume Android users have way more options. Is this one of the reasons games are all going free+in-app downloads? What's the actual state of mobile app piracy today? It seems like many mobile developers are already moving to alternative models not involving di…

I'd have thought that it wouldn't be significantly different to crack the in-app content and provide that for free as well, or even repackaged into the original app. About the only thing that I can think that will defend against this is a streaming/always online service that actively requires cooperation from a server as part of its implementation. Any offline licensing system can and most likely will be cracked even…

It's harder to crack in-app content because authentication of the purchase happens server-side, and because the task of cracking in-app content is different for each app.

Re: I Think Your App Should Be Free

#180

Post by hxa7241 » Tue, Oct 04, 2011, 4:20 PM UTC

earbitscom wrote: post #137

toyg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how exactly is this different from any other trade out there? Plumbers are not born as such, they invest money and time to become skilled professionals; but when they fix your boiler, they don't ask for royalties every time you turn the boiler on, do they? They perform a service, you pay for the service, and everyone's happy. For example, there is no reason why the entire process shouldn't be monetized. A lot of…

There is nothing different about the plumber and the artist. The plumber comes to your house and leaves you with a working toilet. The artist goes to the studio and leaves you with a copy of a song. In both cases, you now have something of value created by another person. Both would like to be paid for their work. Last I checked, no artists are selling MP3s to consumers on a per stream royalty basis. They're asking f…

> There is nothing different about the plumber and the artist. > Both would like to be paid for their work.

No. A plumber wants to be paid for work, your musician wants to be paid a rent. A plumber wants to be paid once, your musician wants to be paid for every copy.

If your musician comes to me and offers to make a song, and I agree to pay to fund it, then fine: we make an exchange just like a plumber and customer. But a plumber does not then impose restrictions that I cannot copy their pipes and stuff, or cannot allow anyone else to use them.

A plumber is not given special monopoly privileges -- that is the difference. Now, such privileges might be pragmatically justifiable as a market mechanism (as is the contention of copyright), but there is clearly a difference between having them and not.