Earlier quoted context omitted.
sure but it would be nice if AI paid it's fair share in many different ways for humans keeping it relevant. Open AI wants to provide all Americans stock options, which is one way but the more the merrier.
>sure but it would be nice if AI paid it's fair share in many different ways for humans keeping it relevant Oh that's coming, don;t you worry, the legislative part just hasn't caught up with the LLM business yet since none of them are making much profit yet so there's nothing you can shake out of them yet What I mean by this is, in many EU countries, the unions of creative artist have lobbied the government to make u…
What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
91–100 of 134 posts
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually if authors could sell directly I’ll gladly buy from them each and every time and cut off the middle man.
What is making it complex for authors to sell directly? Edit: hah, only 15 minutes late with my attempt at Socratic spiel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48810056
If an author living at place X sells directly to a reader living at place Y and it is not true that for all governments G PlaceInJurisdictionOf(X,G) == PlaceInJurisdictionOf(Y,G), then the author is making a cross border sale which can have annoying tax considerations.
The internet made it very easy for someone to physically run a small business that conducts transactions across dozens or even hundreds of borders, especially if they are selling intangible goods, but as far as I know the legal environment has not been updated for that.
Hence it is a lot easier to use a middleman who handles the legal stuff with cross border transactions and you only have to deal with the middleman.
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument isn’t simple, it’s word salad. You can easily transfer a right of ownership. You can bake a cake and I can buy it from you; once that happens, it is theft for you to take the cake and eat it. Both of these are expressions of an inalienable right to property.
You could have strong property rights for physical goods while simultaneously having no intellectual property rights - there's nothing that makes the latter instrinsically follow from the former.
In the modern context, this is pretty easy to project.
Surely you agree that you have a property right to your computer. How did you get it? You purchased it from the manufacturer (or a retailer, who purchased it from them). The laptop itself was their property from the moment it was made.
What about the factory that made it? Surely, the factory is their property, too. It would be theft for you to get a gang to go and take it over, just as it would be theft for you to loot its machinery and supplies. A factory, though, isn't just a building. It's a set of processes, designs, and techniques that a company uses to build products. For the same reasons and in the same way, those ideas — that intellectual property — belong to the company.
Similarly, a book on your shelf is yours. The store bought it from the printer, who was contracted by a publisher, who paid the author to write it. The fact that _you don't like these middlemen_ doesn't give you the right to steal from all of them.
To those of you who rationalize your thieving behavior: It makes you an entitled child.
The ideas in the book are the author's intellectual property, and only because that exists, you can claim any right to own your copy of the book as physical property.
So, no, you cannot have strong property rights for physical goods while simultaneously having no intellectual property rights. That is a complete contradiction.
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or just buy an actual book from and independent bookshop.
That’s fine if you have one near to you, don’t have mobility issues that make it hard to visit or accessibility issues that make book print hard to read. And it stocks the kinds of books you want to read. Without being all woke about it, indie book stores can be great if you like reading the sorts of books your particular local flavour of indie book stores stocks.
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#95It’s straight up greed, IMHO.
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s fine if you have one near to you, don’t have mobility issues that make it hard to visit or accessibility issues that make book print hard to read. And it stocks the kinds of books you want to read. Without being all woke about it, indie book stores can be great if you like reading the sorts of books your particular local flavour of indie book stores stocks.
Most indie bookstores will happily order books for you from the publisher/distributor if they don't have them in stock.
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is making it complex for authors to sell directly? Edit: hah, only 15 minutes late with my attempt at Socratic spiel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48810056
> What is making it complex for authors to sell directly? If an author living at place X sells directly to a reader living at place Y and it is not true that for all governments G PlaceInJurisdictionOf(X,G) == PlaceInJurisdictionOf(Y,G), then the author is making a cross border sale which can have annoying tax considerations. The internet made it very easy for someone to physically run a small business that conducts…
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#98Buying the physical book from Amazon isn’t a great way to stick it to Bezos. Just have your local bookstore order it for you, it’s easy.
I agree, easy and much more pleasant. Walk down the street, go into the bookshop (which is by essence a place in 3D, much more pleasant than a screen), search for a book, find it, turn a few pages, chat with the seller or with someone else interested by a book you liked, buy the book you came for, and another one you did not plan to buy, stop somewhere to drink a coffee, open the first few pages, etc... How can a web…
They don't have it, because they've limited shelf space and only stock popular books that are on best-seller lists. The History of Scruggs Biplanes 1907-1919 isn't one of them.
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could have strong property rights for physical goods while simultaneously having no intellectual property rights - there's nothing that makes the latter instrinsically follow from the former.
Physical property rights and intellectual property rights have the same root: That someone did work to produce a value, and by right, has ownership of it. This is even how homesteading laws worked when there was widespread wilderness. A person could go to empty land, cultivate it, and after a set time of productive use, gain a legal claim over it. In the modern context, this is pretty easy to project. Surely you agre…
No, it's for fundamentally different reasons.
Physical property rights exist to protect people.
IP rights exist to benefit society other than the IP rights holders - either by a) incentivizing inventions (patents, that expire) or b) incentivizing creative works (copyright, that expire) or c) trademarks (that explicitly exist to prevent consumer confusion).
"Processes" and "techniques" that aren't patentable don't "belong" to a company with a factory in any legal or moral sense, and if they are patentable, they only belong to the company for the defined term of the patent, after which they belong to the public via public domain.
Re: What does Jeff Bezos think is going to happen?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
This should be relatively easy to disrupt for ebooks. It doesn't seem necessary to have the infrastructure and pockets of Amazon to sell ebooks (and be fairer to authors and readers). I'm not convinced about discoverability, I don't browse random books or look for recommendations on Amazon; to me Amazon is the final stop once I know the ebook I want to buy. Literally a search bar for the book I already want. I don't…
>This should be relatively easy to disrupt for ebooks. [...] This should be feasible to overcome by a better platform. If it's so trivial as you claim, then you can put your money where your mouth is and become a millionaire/billionaire by delivering this. Especially now with LLMs, the coding part of the problem should be easier than ever.
I have no desire to become a millionaire and I already have a job, and do I need to remind you of the HN guidelines you've clearly forgotten?