Hey guys!
I wrote a small article on one of the most popular topics these days ))) hehehe. No controversies, just some basic stuff.
http://www.louigiverona.com/?page=projects&s=writings&t=authorship&a=authorship_property
Your writing of this article is very well, by the way, Louigi.
A first comment :
QuoteThat means that this individual is granted a special right to use that object in any way he wants. Rules which define ownership differ in various countries, cultures and historical settings.
Hm. It can easily go wrong here. To treat the object you own in any way ?
Of course it's a cheap example to mention the culture of beating up your wife, because she's your property.
Is it decent to buy a Picasso, and then use it for your campfire ?
Property doesn't only mean rights, it also means responsability.
So I first want to question the concept 'owning things', before reading on about the intellectual variant.
here is an interesting idea....
But I still don't like it
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/goodbye-drm-hello-stealable-digital-personal-property.ars
The wife example would not apply - wife is not an object, she is a person and interpersonal relationships are quite different from relations to objects.
QuoteIs it decent to buy a Picasso, and then use it for your campfire?
It might not be decent, but you have the right to do so, yes. On the other hand you have found an example that has a pretty complex issue here - can work of art "belong" to any one person or will in this case the person be destroying the collective property of the society?
If you believe my definition of ownership to be too general (it was meant to be general), then you can rephrase it as "That means that this individual is granted a special right to use that object in certain ways." It will not change the conclusions of the article.
Also, you have brought up an example of Picasso, but in examples of more "ordinary" objects its owner can do absolutely anything he wants. You can buy an expensive beautiful car, then put a dynamite under it and blow it up. It might not be considered "sane" thing to do, but it certainly is not prohibited within the concept of ownership.
Chris, interesting article.
QuoteIn Sweazey's view, most people understand why rightsholders want some limits on copying, but they can't abide the electronic tethers that DRM currently requires. They don't want to be told what to do and who to share their content with; what they want, he tells Ars, is for digital property to "complete the emulation of the physical world."
The assumption made in the beginning of the article is very-very questionable. I personally believe physical property to be limiting (read my article above) and have never wanted it to complete emulation of the physical world. In fact, the good thing about digital technology is that it makes it possible to step out of the usual limitations. And I have never heard people wanting to "complete the emulation of the physical world". What he says is simply untrue.
What he basically wants to do is strip computers of what they can do best - copying technology. His desire is a step backwards - he wishes, like the industry, to create an artificial scarcity. I do not think this is any good in the long run.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"The wife example would not apply - wife is not an object, she is a person and interpersonal relationships are quite different from relations to objects.
QuoteIs it decent to buy a Picasso, and then use it for your campfire?
It might not be decent, but you have the right to do so, yes. On the other hand you have found an example that has a pretty complex issue here - can work of art "belong" to any one person or will in this case the person be destroying the collective property of the society?
If you believe my definition of ownership to be too general (it was meant to be general), then you can rephrase it as "That means that this individual is granted a special right to use that object in certain ways." It will not change the conclusions of the article.
Also, you have brought up an example of Picasso, but in examples of more "ordinary" objects its owner can do absolutely anything he wants. You can buy an expensive beautiful car, then put a dynamite under it and blow it up. It might not be considered "sane" thing to do, but it certainly is not prohibited within the concept of ownership.
True. The thing is this: the fact that you have the right to do something doesn't mean doing it is morally right. So, while it is abhorrent to buy a Picasso painting only to destroy it, the buyer has indeed the right to do it. That's what property is about: the owner has exclusive right to do whatever he likes with his property, provided that he doesn't violate other people's rights.
more fuel to the fire
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10355448-93.html
ASCAP wants money for downloads, film downloads, and even 30 second previews on iTunes and any other on line seller.
Since they are going to congress I wouldn't be surprised to find they'll want money from people whose music is not covered by ASCAP.
I wouldn't be surprised either. That's what they finally want.
Just a tax on anything, copyrighted or not.
Yes like the tax on blank tapes and blank cdrs now too? In europe?
The tax on blank cds is not THAT bad an idea, although I do not like it too much. Basically, it is a tax on society to pay for arts. In reality though, it is a tax on society to continue support record labels and publishers.
In general, the bad thing about any tax-like scheme is that it is not a targeted payment. Instead of directly supporting arts, those tax have several layers between artists and tax payers and the money often goes into other channels.
However, better pay a tax for cds than be put into jail for copying a file.
I agree a tax is better than jail
Still.... this is all crazy talk. The people who actually do the creation get hardly anything - and people who do hardly anything get rich. The system is upside down.
and more crazy talk from the RIAA - what they teach grammer kids like
Students are also asked to pretend that they are entering a recording studio; one suggested "rap" they are to sing follows:
Music is worth it, if you're asking me
True words, new rhythms, sweet melody
Just tell me where to get it and I'll gladly pay
For a song that says what my heart wants to say.
But don't try to fool me with aphony [sic] copy,
'Cause songlifting's wrong, and it's got to stop, see?
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/back-to-school-with-riaa-funded-curriculum.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
more insanity => music rules
http://www.music-rules.com/teachers.html
Quote from: "uncloned"Students are also asked to pretend that they are entering a recording studio; one suggested "rap" they are to sing follows:
Wow. I feel Brave New World becoming true once again. Or 3rd Reich. Or whatever.
It's brainwashing kids allright. But strangely enough they encourage them to make photocopies
of the program.
'music rules'.... I get sick.
Yeah. Influencing kids is a strong move on their part and it can create confusion in minds of whole generations. It really is very similar to Soviet propaganda in schools during USSR.
The funny thing is is that several days ago I went to UK and, bringing along my laptop, thought - in Russia I feel totally free in terms of information and all that kind of stuff. In the UK I am not sure. I mean, a policeman may have the right, I dunno, to ask me to show him my laptop to check for "illegal" content.
I mean, for a Russian person, after the 70 years of USSR all the western world was typically associated with progress and freedom. Today, however, the stereotype is just a stereotype. Those 70 years of oppression and putting the whole country into underground culture mode have made it literally impossible to impose copyright restricting laws on the Russian society today.
In the western world, however, the restrictions on freedom are now more than serious. In fact, I wouldn't want to go to USA today at all - or else I'll go without my laptop and why would I want to do that =)))
definitely if you travel to the USA do not bring your laptop.
For a couple years or so computers have been seized to be searched for "kidde porn + terrorism" and never returned - that caused a stink so there is a move now to "image" the hard drive and impound the computer for a few days - even the computers of returning US citizens.
the "land of the free" has become the "prison of the "safe""
At TorrentFreak we had a very interesting discussion. Those of you who are interested in copyright problematic, do read up - lots of people made really good arguments. I personally found a lot of interesting points on both sides.
http://torrentfreak.com/french-opposition-to-challenge-3-strikes-in-court-090923/
The guy there - Mystik - says:
"they have created a generation of people who are marked by an almost total refusal to pay for any content."
If you follow how Reasoned Mind person speaks and other several people too, I can see that the shift went towards selling music.
'Selling music' in my opinion is a bad term because it implies that music itself can have a set price. But art is subjective and basically priceless and nobody ever tries to place price on music itself - all such attempts are pathetic and people do not react well to buying "content".
In reality, the record "industry" is selling discs - material carriers with copies of music. And in the Internet they are now trying to place a price on music itself, which really is impossible.
another good article about the lunacy of copyright
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/100-years-of-big-content-fearing-technologyin-its-own-words.ars
This article tracks 100 years of fear mongering.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/tayside_and_central/8317952.stm
"An assistant at a grocery store in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, was ordered by the Performing Right Society (PRS) to obtain a performer's license and to pay royalties because she was informally singing popular songs while stocking groceries. The PRS later backed down and apologized. This after the same store had turned off the radio after a warning from the PRS. We have entered an era where music is no longer an art for all to enjoy, but rather a form of private property that must be regulated and taxed like alcohol. "Music to the ears" has become 'dollars in the bank'."
As long as money is involded in all its ridiculous forms, I'm fed up taking part in a discussion about intellectual property.
my fond hope is that the machinery will crash and places like modplug will be where music is found by most.
actions like this certainly do not help their case. it seems the industry in the UK is even worse that the RIAA - which is hard to believe.
I see that IP is becoming more about ownership of content, not ownership of creative work.
For example, I say that I have the rights over the word "music", so you can't talk about music without paying me. For example, if you want to make a movie called "Boomerang" you can't do it. It is already registered.
If John Doe composed The Ultimate Soundtrack, since the company that hired him paid for it, the company has the rights. Why is Doe not the owner of his own creation? Is a payment enough to deny him his rights to dispose of his own work?
Scarsity of ideas... IP is great to make peopleowners of ideas, so scarsity will come when all ideas are owned and you have little chance to own one.
The good thing about being fined, arrested and convicted for "misusing" RIAA music, is that it makes non commercial free music more attractive.
Right on.
Quote from: "PabloLuna"I see that IP is becoming more about ownership of content, not ownership of creative work.
The good thing about being fined, arrested and convicted for "misusing" RIAA music, is that it makes non commercial free music more attractive.
Amen.
A pictorial representation of the RIAA and other such entities
(http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/original/300px-Ouroboros.png)
You may like to read this on file sharing and music consumption
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8337887.stm
First of all, "music consumption" is a propaganda term which should not be used. Music is not a sandwich to be consumed. Listening to music is much more than mere "consumption". It also assumes that the public can be divided into "producers" and "consumers". It makes it seem that there are several gifted musicians who benefit the rest and condescendingly deliver music to the cattle. All of this is ridiculous and far from truth. When a musician performs to any random audience of 100, chances are a third of them are involved into music in one way or another.
And finally, any argument that tries to show that file sharing in fact brings money to the publishers misses the point since it silently assumes that the profit of publishers is any important at all in the question of our freedom. The freedom to share information non-commercially is essential. And even if publishers weren't making money - I do not think it would be of any importance.
And actually, I would seriously question that information. It says that people who unlawfully download spend more money on music than those who don't. While the correlation here itself is questionable, I would go even further and question the conclusion itself. I, for one, do not buy copies of music anymore. I do not see a reason to buy cds - I have no place to store them and they also let you down while files don't. Last time I bought a cd was a year ago. I bought a classical music cd and later had to download different performance of the compositions anyway cause I did not like what was on that cd. So what free (as in freedom) access of information results in - I do not buy cds and do not plan to.
As for DVDs - I try not to buy them at all since most of them stop working within a year, especially the official ones - pirate copies usually last longer.
So I think this article misses the point.
Tell a kid not to do something and he might try to do it.
From what i have seen in kids is that for them downloading is not immoral, it is just illegal sometimes.
For them it is not stealing, just copying. Stealing implies removal of custody.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"First of all, "music consumption" is a propaganda term which should not be used. Music is not a sandwich to be consumed.
When I eat my music, it stops existing, so I need to buy more from my player... :D :lol:
On a side note, there is controversy about Xbox ban.
Xbox console ban is 'permanent'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8356621.stm
Xbox ban: Gamers speak out
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8355840.stm
This is a violation of human rights, actually. All of the intellectual property rants are actually a violation of human rights. If I buy a disc, I buy all the software on it. Because it is a physical object - it is burned to cd by placing special markings on it. I bought it and I should be supposed to do whatever I want with it.
By introducing copyright and intellectual "property" laws the government basically gives the companies a way to claim something they do not own.
A nice article on this here:
http://www.libervis.com/article/intellectual-property-a-violation-of-real-property
This Xbox thing only shows their priorities.
John Locke warned that even if laws to defend private property are necessary, men driven by their own interes or driven by ignorance are not likely to acknowledge private property when their interests are in the middle.
Did You Say "Intellectual Property"? It's a Seductive Mirage
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
Thanks. A very good article.
OT: At the bottom was a link about the OGG format, so I joined the campaign.
What I sometimes do not like about Stallman's argument is that it is philosophically superficial. It deals with the law. He does not underline the fact that intellectual property is a very-very artificial concept, though he does state that it i just a law. Wikipedia article on intellectual property and on copyright in particular also points out that this is just an artificial idea.
It looks like now it is illegal to "sell friends and followers".
I never suspected that the possibility of getting friends could be copyrighted.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8370302.stm
As for networking sites and second life, it is not as cool as an online forum.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8367957.stm
I think you (and a few others) are not only "a bit" overreacting in this heated discussion about intellectual property and similar stuff. I do not see anything right in the things this external company did ("selling" "friends") either.
Quote from: "Jojo"I think you (and a few others) are not only "a bit" overreacting in this heated discussion about intellectual property and similar stuff. I do not see anything right in the things this external company did ("selling" "friends") either.
Companies sell your data to other companies.
Why is that a company can't do the same with companies?
Is it that only people's data can be sold?
Are you trying to justify data theft and dubious terms and conditions?
Quote from: "Jojo"Are you trying to justify data theft and dubious terms and conditions?
Do you know what data mining is?
This company was doing data mining.
For some reason when a company does data mining on another company, it is not legal. But when people do data mining on you, it is legal.
Quote from: "PabloLuna"For some reason when a company does data mining on another company, it is not legal. But when people do data mining on you, it is legal.
Then ranting about doing data maning on another company is sure the wrong thing. However, please continue ranting about data mining being done on people.
Quote from: "Jojo"Quote from: "PabloLuna"For some reason when a company does data mining on another company, it is not legal. But when people do data mining on you, it is legal.
Then ranting about doing data maning on another company is sure the wrong thing. However, please continue ranting about data mining being done on people.
I think I was using irony.
It is like saying "if banks can abuse of people, why can't we abuse of banks too?".
How do banks abuse of people? See this.
Money as debt
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544#
Sorry for going off topic, but there are many things currently going wrong with the current design of things.
Now, going back to topic, if you provide a software without a service, software is likely to be copied in one way or another. Even if software takes time to be made, the real value comes with the service that is provided.
I also make software for free. Not only music.
At work I also make some software, but the value added does not come from the software itself (which helps to increase productivity at work), but from the support I provide when changes are needed. If they wanted to copy it and make changes by themselves, they'd be free to do it, but people do not like that at work.
They do not pay me for the software, but for the service (I find new ways to make their lives easier myself), and this is why I have a job.
Facts about filesharing
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/11/facts_about_filesharing.html
Budding authors publish own work online and in print
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/8382626.stm
French record labels sue, um, SourceForge
Open source haven thumped for harboring P2P app
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/18/sppf_sues_four_us_p2p_companies/
Quote from: "PabloLuna"French record labels sue, um, SourceForge
Open source haven thumped for harboring P2P app
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/18/sppf_sues_four_us_p2p_companies/
WTF?
this would seemed to fit in here
anyone else seen this article?
Record Labels Face $6 Billion Damages for Pirating Artists
http://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-face-60-billion-damages-for-pirating-artists-091207/
While the major record labels were dragging file-sharers and BitTorrent sites to court for copyright infringement, they were themselves being sued by a conglomerate of artists for exactly the same offenses. Warner, Sony BMG, EMI and Universal face up to $6 billion in damages for pirating a massive 300,000 tracks.
Yep. I am also reading TF (you can even see me commenting there from time to time).
But I also found a very in-depth site with lots of very good articles on IP. Including this news, actually. But specifically, this article:
http://www.againstmonopoly.org/index.php?perm=593056000000001957
The perfect dictator would copyright all dissident material and the sue and sent dissidents to jail, and he could make money after collecting fines from dissidents too. After all dissidents may not want to reveal their identity as they would fear retaliation, so dictator could copyright them and use Yahoo services to hunt down dissidents as criminals.
Here an article about the prices to hunt down dissidents.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/yahoo-spy-prices
It seems that morality is a factor that is usually mentioned when talking about IP. Let's see the current status of ethics...
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B74AI20091208
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8363599.stm
This is a VERY substantial talk on IP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZgLJkj6m0A
Do you mean the ''making music'' part or?
I can need some master help............
The guy who gave it is Stephan Kinsella, the author of the work I recommended the other day in another thread.
Yep, I am gonna be reading his work and a couple of other major works which are recommended at those sites.
After listening to this and having the understanding of IP which I have, I went to a book shop and decided to see what is there on IP. Well, what do you know - I stumbled upon a text book which actually critisized IP and showed how companies and governments misunderstand it and misuse it.
But there were also other books, which made me shiver - where in strict tones IP was pronounced to be the most important of the human rights and all the punishments you get and all the laws that support this and how this will not be tolerated and what laws are planned to be taken to fight "piracy" and make sure "nobody steals other people's hard work". And this is the official position, where they don't care about whether it's right or wrong - they care only about enforcement.
Btw, I do not agree with Kinsella's position on GNU GPL.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Yep, I am gonna be reading his work and a couple of other major works which are recommended at those sites.
After listening to this and having the understanding of IP which I have, I went to a book shop and decided to see what is there on IP. Well, what do you know - I stumbled upon a text book which actually critisized IP and showed how companies and governments misunderstand it and misuse it.
But there were also other books, which made me shiver - where in strict tones IP was pronounced to be the most important of the human rights and all the punishments you get and all the laws that support this and how this will not be tolerated and what laws are planned to be taken to fight "piracy" and make sure "nobody steals other people's hard work". And this is the official position, where they don't care about whether it's right or wrong - they care only about enforcement.
Btw, I do not agree with Kinsella's position on GNU GPL.
As I see it, what should not be stolen is the credit for authorship.
Anything else is not theft.
Musicians can play live. No one can replace them.
There are record companies that allow cheap downloading.
Piracy has 3 elements involved:
-Price
-Features
-Availability
-Uniqueness
Price: If you have a very expensive product, it creates an incentive to duplicate it.
Features: People do not like to pay too much for crap.
Availability: Companies do not use to reach their customers. Pirates cover that gap.
Uniqueness: All downloads are the same. If it does not come with a useful service that gives you some uniqueness, there is an incentive to pirate.
I discovered that when a software I made for sale at university, was pirated. It was indeed my fault.
Piracy is an industrial term. With the come of the copying technology piracy is generally non-existent in the digital world. File sharing is not piracy and at this moment in time and state of technology file sharing cannot be stopped by price control, since most files are available for no cost at all.
And not allowing distribution of software that is publicly released is generally unethical and is a wrong on part of the developer.
and thus - their strategy is to throttle the internet user - preferably by making your internet service provider a policeman because it doesn't cost them anything.
Yep. Let's see where it leads. Read latest TF? BREIN wants to control what people say now.
The problem with condoning piracy is that it has a very real impact on the people who develop the material you are pirating. Yes, the record labels are evil, and take far more than their fair share. Yes, a lot of software costs more than it needs to. However, as both a musician and a software developer, I am acutely aware of the fact that were people to start pirating the software we develop wholesale, the company I work for would go under.
Now I do believe that software companies can offer more than just the boxed product -- the company I work for sells the product once, and support on a yearly basis to the clients. This is a very sound, well-proven model; some people/companies run a very profitable business by giving the software away and selling their support.
When it comes to music software, though, this model generally doesn't fit. I recently bought Komplete (http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/komplete-6/?content=949), and I can't really see any need for support. I don't make enough money from my music to cover the costs of the purchases I've made for it (I've spent probably around $2200 so far, and I've only made around $200 from independent sales, last.fm (http://www.last.fm/user/bvanoudtshoorn/), and thesixtyone (http://www.thesixtyone.com/barryvan/songs/new/)). But I am more than happy to pay this price, because of the enjoyment I derive from using it. If I earn $x an hour of disposable income, then I consider a product "worthwhile" if the number of hours I'll use it for will (more than) cover this amount, given its price. I do the same with games, which explains why I tend to buy them two to five years after their initial release.
You see, I really appreciate the software that I use. And I appreciate the developers who write that software. I strongly believe that if you pirate software, you are not only taking money from the developers, you are also spitting in their faces. By pirating software, you are basically saying to the developers that their work lacks value, and that you don't consider it worth paying for.
Now, as I acknowledged earlier, software can be very pricey. In my opinion, a lot of it is severely overpriced (especially games). I don't believe that prices are necessarily this high because of lost revenue to piracy; rather, I believe that the high prices have led to an increase in piracy. Nevertheless, I can't condone it. There are nearly always alternatives, including, perhaps, just not using that particular piece of software. And saving up for something, be it a car, a house, or a piece of software (not necessarily in order of increasing cost) can make it have more "worth" to you personally.
I've mostly discussed software piracy so far, primarily because I do believe that it's a far greater problem, generally speaking, than music piracy. However, I also have problems with music piracy. Services such as last.fm (http://www.last.fm/user/bvanoudtshoorn/) and YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvbSiQZfACQ) mean that the tired old "try before you buy" argument is no longer valid. An alternative argument is that "the RIAA deserves to kicked in the googlies", and although that's not necessarily a bad idea, I don't think that piracy is the solution: boycotting is. Perhaps more so than most other people, we "scene" musicians can enjoy and appreciate independent music and musicians more than most people. So why not support them? You can buy direct from the artist, and smaller sites like thesixtyone offer quite reasonable rates for free hosting and promotion. What I propose is rather than taking from the record labels, you give to the independent artists. It's a less selfish, more positive act that can have tangibly good effects in people's lives.
<disclaimer>Well, I think that I should probably climb down from my soap box. I know that I've probably raised a few hackles, arched a few eyebrows, and caused a few rye smiles. I'm not attacking any individual, nor am I judging anyone -- I'm just stating what I personally think. I know that quite a few people disagree with me, and that's their prerogative.</disclaimer>
Incidentally, I highly recommend that YouTube clip -- it's from an independent Australian artist, and the track is just awesome.
QuoteThe problem with condoning piracy is that it has a very real impact on the people who develop the material you are pirating. Yes, the record labels are evil, and take far more than their fair share. Yes, a lot of software costs more than it needs to. However, as both a musician and a software developer, I am acutely aware of the fact that were people to start pirating the software we develop wholesale, the company I work for would go under.
I understand your point of view.
My point of view differs. While I do acknowledge that "piracy" might have a real impact on musicians and software developers, I think that it is a problem that they've created themselves.
First off, software development is much closer to science than most people would like to admit. And science is not an activity that is well suited for business - no matter how you put it. In fact, it is best when it is not a business.
Art is even less a business and what we have today in music is a perversion of what art is, fundamentally.
If we put music aside, where an average musician does not have problems raising funds if he is a real musician and not just some kid who dreams of sitting at home, doing breakbeats and earning millions, in the software world the situation is not much less transparent.
If your company cannot make business without undermining human society and ordering people not to cooperate and share with their friends, then your company deserves to go down - as harshly as it sounds, I do not see why it should be otherwise. And if your company is keen on staying in business and at the same conduct their business ethically, then perhaps software is not the best field for profit.
All of the reasoning that if people are not paid no software will be created does not stand up to critical thinking. And in fact, being part of the free software community and looking at what software arises from people who do not get paid - I can tell you that it is already a proven fact that software will be developed without it being a business quite normally. And the applications which I am using today in the music on GNU/Linux are very serious apps - they are not some buggy command line things, they are very robust, modern and flexible applications which in many cases outrun many of the commercial proprietary software on Windows and Mac OS. Linux has its own downsides, just like any system, but it has nothing to do with bad software.
Another thing is the word "piracy" itself.
I would agree that if by "piracy" you mean someone taking your product and delivering it on an industrial scale this might be not very good and should be controlled as an industrial regulation. But if by "piracy" you mean an act of, say, myself giving a copy of the software to my friend, then indeed - I do not need such software anywhere near my computer, my family and my friends.
QuoteI strongly believe that if you pirate software, you are not only taking money from the developers, you are also spitting in their faces. By pirating software, you are basically saying to the developers that their work lacks value, and that you don't consider it worth paying for.
This genuinely shows that you are speaking about things which you are not very familiar with - no offense meant. Since I have switched to GNU/Linux, I have already spend a lot of money on software - software which is available for no price. I am doing this because I respect the developers and want to support them in their work. And each month when I receive my salary, I go around sites of software I am using and donate money to the developers - this includes many of the apps I am using and which I also help to perfect by doing feedback work which is also very difficult at times.
So if I am distributing software freely, it does not mean I am not paying for it.
In the proprietary software world it is the developer who spits in your face, by trying to control your life with his licenses.
And, as the popular phrase goes - you can either deserve gratitude or demand it - but not both. If the developer of a proprietary app does not respect me to the point of telling me that he should control with whom I share things, then I do not see why I should be thankful to him. Really - I just don't.
Also, many proprietary developers do not allow you to be thankful. You either buy their 300$ software with a restrictive license or else you are a "pirate" and an "enemy of humanity". They do not put Donate buttons on their sites to allow people to pay up. They do not allow you to support the project at any time you want.
And there are actually so many wonderful schemes available to get some money for free software. No support? Fine. Set up a site, show demos of the software and start collecting money. As soon as you get 10000$, software gets released to the public. Before that - only demo versions are available? Realistic? Sure. It's not a major business, but it can be done.
Allow people to pay for software in parts. They set up an account on the site and it shows how much of the price they've covered with their small donations. Let's say a program is worth 300$. You are using the software and pay up from time to time. The meter in your account shows the amount of money left to pay the full price.
Another thing about "piracy", which is a deeper argument and about which I can write a book, is that the "piracy" problematic divides people into producers and consumers, which is generally not true. In fact, it is so untrue, that this argument alone can show, if properly explained, that all the proprietary schemes which disallow sharing, copying and transmitting of information bring a lot of harm to society in general and to all the individuals involved in particular.
Of course, this is just my view. The amount of proprietary software shows that lots of people do not share my values. But the strength and slow but steady growth of free software shows that I am not alone in my beliefs.
QuoteWhat I propose is rather than taking from the record labels, you give to the independent artists. It's a less selfish, more positive act that can have tangibly good effects in people's lives.
This is a good thing and many musicians are open to that scheme and it is very successful. It does have technical problems - there is yet no popular paying system which will allow for anonymous micro payments. PayPal has it's own problems, though it is quite ok for the moment.
However, nobody should be forced into paying and I do not believe that if you are listening to music, you automatically are in debt to the artist. In fact, such a notion is ridiculous and insulting.
the paradigm for artist is:
the guy on the street corner or in the subway with a hat out for donations?
Musician is a person who composes and/or performs music.
Out of all the professional musicians I know - and I know quite a few - none of them make a living by selling copies of their music and telling people not to distribute it. Some of those guys actually make quite some money. For instance, one of them is a demoscener, who writes music for games and that music is available on his site. He also does some web development. Another person, with whom I often play gigs, plays classical and ethnic music. He earns his money by live concerts and teaching recorder and percussion. He also teaches biology.
You might notice that in the above examples all of the guys do something else apart from music. Well, that's a usual situation. Musicians who do only music are generally a rare occasion. I do know those too, though, a bit more of them in the classical world, but their profits are more like salaries.
If you make software to make music, people is not likely to make too much money out of it. So if it is for sale, it would be too expensive for the amount of money people might make with it.
There are plenty of free softwares out there for free. And I think it is a good thing, because it discourages people to make millions with a tiny piece of code.
I do programming at work, and the value added of my work is to help in the solution of a problem my company has. The value added is not the piece of code.
If you think good games are overpriced, try these freeware games.
http://www.gltron.org/download.php
http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPGames.html
http://www.freepcgamers.com/2009/02/free-adventure-games-you-must-play.html
http://www.freepcgamers.com/2008/03/free-racing-games-list.html
http://www.orbitersim.com
One interesting case of a cool freeware game is the one released by Volvo, which is basically advertising in the form of a game, since all cars you drive are Volvo. Another interesting case is Orbiter, which is a sim that has so many addons that is superior when compared to any similar software around.
Another problem of commercial software is that it makes games based on demand, not really based on the best interest of society.
I have to admit - I have yet to see an open source game that is not crap - unfortunately.
There were a couple of closed source projects but which were freeware and that were interesting but they were never completed.
All of the above does not look promising judging by the screenshots, tbh.
LV - then get involved in making a game that isn't crap (if you haven't already)
it is perhaps the best way for you to make a positive difference - be part of the solution.
Quote from: "PabloLuna"
Another problem of commercial software is that it makes games based on demand, not really based on the best interest of society.
Er... isn't demand what people want? So, how could something based on demand not be based on the best interest of society?
Quote from: "PPH"Quote from: "PabloLuna"
Another problem of commercial software is that it makes games based on demand, not really based on the best interest of society.
Er... isn't demand what people want? So, how could something based on demand not be based on the best interest of society?
Fast food would be a good example of such a thing.
Quote from: "uncloned"LV - then get involved in making a game that isn't crap (if you haven't already)
it is perhaps the best way for you to make a positive difference - be part of the solution.
Yep!
I am involved in two games that aren't crap ))) seemingly!
Quote from: "PPH"
Er... isn't demand what people want? So, how could something based on demand not be based on the best interest of society?
I don't think that advertised things are actually on demand. They make you think they are on demand. In reality they do everything in their power to make people buy their products, whatever those are.
The on demand products are bread, milk, toilet paper - you know, things which people really need, which do not need any special advertising. Yet another proprietary app which does some new functionality "which you never dreamt of" (and which roughly translates to - "and which you basically do not need") is not a product on demand. Innovation in itself is a questionable good, I can tell you.
Microsoft Invents Price-Gouging the Least Influential
"In the world envisioned by Microsoft's just-published patent application for Social Marketing, monopolists will maximize revenue by charging prices inversely related to the perceived influence an individual has on others. Microsoft gives an example of a pricing model that charges different people $0, $5, $10, $20, or $25 for the identical item based on the influence the purchaser wields. A presentation describing the revenue optimization scheme earned one of the three inventors applause (MS-Research video), and the so-called 'influence and exploit' strategies were also featured at WWW 2008 (PDF). The invention jibes nicely with Bill Gates's pending patents for identifying influencers. Welcome to the brave new world of analytics."
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220090307073%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20090307073&RS=DN/20090307073
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=103759
http://www2008.org/papers/pdf/p189-hartline.pdf
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2008/11/Gates_top_Microsoft_executives_do_some_inventing_on_the_side34192179.html
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/12/want_a_job_anal.html
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Quote from: "PPH"
Er... isn't demand what people want? So, how could something based on demand not be based on the best interest of society?
I don't think that advertised things are actually on demand. They make you think they are on demand. In reality they do everything in their power to make people buy their products, whatever those are.
The on demand products are bread, milk, toilet paper - you know, things which people really need, which do not need any special advertising. Yet another proprietary app which does some new functionality "which you never dreamt of" (and which roughly translates to - "and which you basically do not need") is not a product on demand. Innovation in itself is a questionable good, I can tell you.
That doesn't make sense. It seems you think everyone is stupid but you. Do you really think evil capitalists hypnotize the masses and make them work hard to buy useless things? Come on! By the way, I listen to ads about milk everyday. Advertising is information. Ultimately people decide what they buy and what they don't, except, of course, when the government meddles with prices and prohibitions.
Companies cannot survive if they don't provide what people want. Of course advertising influences people? It makes them know that certain things exist. Sometimes ads lie. So do politicians. Not everyone is stupid as to fall for the same lie over and over again.
EDIT: patents are an example of such prohibitions that cause the market *not* to be free and hurts people by diverting production from those goods and services which are more urgently needed or wanted by people.
Quote from: "uncloned"Microsoft Invents Price-Gouging the Least Influential
"In the world envisioned by Microsoft's just-published patent application for Social Marketing, monopolists will maximize revenue by charging prices inversely related to the perceived influence an individual has on others. Microsoft gives an example of a pricing model that charges different people $0, $5, $10, $20, or $25 for the identical item based on the influence the purchaser wields. A presentation describing the revenue optimization scheme earned one of the three inventors applause (MS-Research video), and the so-called 'influence and exploit' strategies were also featured at WWW 2008 (PDF). The invention jibes nicely with Bill Gates's pending patents for identifying influencers. Welcome to the brave new world of analytics."
http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220090307073%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20090307073&RS=DN/20090307073
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/video/default.aspx?id=103759
http://www2008.org/papers/pdf/p189-hartline.pdf
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2008/11/Gates_top_Microsoft_executives_do_some_inventing_on_the_side34192179.html
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/12/want_a_job_anal.html
Is this an answer to what I said?
no....
it is an article...
QuoteDo you really think evil capitalists hypnotize the masses and make them work hard to buy useless things?
Well... to take away emotional style of the passage - basically, yes, this is exactly what I think.
In fact, when we had a course in economy in the university, they actually said that western economy is no longer a demand-production scheme. Instead the demand is created by various marketing techniques and cross-company agreements.
A simple example are computers. If you look at the software which you had in, say, 2002, you will see that it basically offers same functionality. The only reason why you have to switch to newer software is not because it is useful, but because software companies are pushing their products and deliberately make them non-compatible with older versions by introducing new versions of file formats or beginning to rely on newer hardware. Creating hype is also part of the game.
When you speak about providing information - this is true, ads do that. But information, especially in our digital age, can spread quite well and in fact more reliably without the need for slogans from people, who are trained to fool you.
There are whole countries which do not or did not have advertisements, yet people could find what they need. I've never heard or seen an ad of a Korg groovebox, but I've bought it because I saw fellow musicians using it and I decided I want it. How did I manage it without ads?
The difference between ads and word of mouth is that the latter does not lie. So why choose ads?
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"QuoteDo you really think evil capitalists hypnotize the masses and make them work hard to buy useless things?
Well... to take away emotional style of the passage - basically, yes, this is exactly what I think.
This is so true for industry music - just had to point that out.
Just like radio play - its not the music people necessarily want to hear - it is the music that the record companies pay the stations to promote.
QuoteThe only reason why you have to switch to newer software is not because it is useful, but because software companies are pushing their products and deliberately make them non-compatible with older versions by introducing new versions of file formats or beginning to rely on newer hardware. Creating hype is also part of the game.
So what you want to say is that every software nowadays should still work perfectly on a 486, just because we all still have one at home? Oh, come on! It might be true that some software is extrmele resource-hungry without any real reason, but how does that apply to the majority of software?
Do you think that software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies? If it were up to me, I'd go and use some WinNT-only WinAPI functions to make my life easier when working on the MPT code. But I know that there are still Win9x people using MPT for example, so I have to use old and outdated APIs. Some software companies just do it right and demand a recent OS and hardware, where such stunts are not necessary. There are more examples...
QuoteDo you think that software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies?
Exactly. In fact, I do not think this, I know this from people who are working in the industry.
There is very little reason to release software so much. And there is also very little reason to switch hardware. There are enthusiasts who code for old computers and what they do is that they write good code and manage to realize modern programs on inferior hardware so that it would run with the same speed. So it can be done. And basically the computers which we have today are very-very powerful machines - as a coder you should know that. And if you know Windows API, you also know that it is not the greatest thing in the world and not the best code, especially if you need to work with sound or video.
You ask how does that apply to the majority of software.
Well, in several ways.
First of all, the commercial battle between software producers, a fight to death which makes them rush releases in order to win the market.
Second, every major software company out there, with several exceptions, deliver proprietary software. That means huge upkeep on writing copy restriction modules (reg keys and all that stuff), publishing discs and packaging, delivering the product to the stores all over the world, having reg key check servers and all that other joyful hassle of a typical proprietary battalion. It means the company grows to a large number of people they have to feed. This means if they stop producing new software which will be bought - they are going bankrupt. Which means they come up with a new version.
And third - simply a habit and general context.
Now, I am not saying software should not be improved. It should. But releasing FL Studio 9 and demanding huge money for basically the same thing... I mean, since FL Studio 5 changes have been minor. And same goes for most of the proprietary software out there - Photoshop, Microsoft Office and the likes.
So - software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies? Yep.
I see that you are extremely biased, or else you would probably also mention Software like Mozilla Firefox which is known to be free software, and it is certainly not made by capitalists. Remember when they dropped Win9x support, eh? Remember how it feels running Firefox on a P3-500? I heavily doubt that Mozilla Corp. has some deal with hardware manufacturers.
This is true, what you say about free software.
But not all free software gets upgraded so aggressively. In fact, most is not when it is completed. There is simply no reason to. It can get slight upgrades, but it will not change much and if Some Software was released as a stable 2.0 release, chances are it will take it several years to become 2.9 or 3.0, not 6 months.
With Firefox it is certainly competition with proprietary browsers. If there was no competition, there would be no rush.
I should have mentioned more reasons, I just did not think you would venture into the free software world.
First off, free software has to compete with proprietary, which gives it the initial speed boost. Lots of software, like Open Office, GIMP, various internet and music apps, video editing software - have to continue to deliver products which users will find attractive to use. Sometimes, like with Open Office they have to reverse engineer a proprietary product to make it relevant.
Second, I would name developer model. Like Canonical, who rush their releases once half a year since they believe it gives them incentives and more satisfaction. But I would argue an OS release differs from a software release.
As for being biased, I do not see in what way. I may not have all the information - it would arrogant to seriously claim so - but I have enough information to say that most of the "digital progress" is artificial and its origins lie in the desire to make more money rather than advance technology. Not all of it, but most of it. Such is my understanding of the situation.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"QuoteDo you really think evil capitalists hypnotize the masses and make them work hard to buy useless things?
Well... to take away emotional style of the passage - basically, yes, this is exactly what I think.
In fact, when we had a course in economy in the university, they actually said that western economy is no longer a demand-production scheme. Instead the demand is created by various marketing techniques and cross-company agreements.
A simple example are computers. If you look at the software which you had in, say, 2002, you will see that it basically offers same functionality. The only reason why you have to switch to newer software is not because it is useful, but because software companies are pushing their products and deliberately make them non-compatible with older versions by introducing new versions of file formats or beginning to rely on newer hardware. Creating hype is also part of the game.
When you speak about providing information - this is true, ads do that. But information, especially in our digital age, can spread quite well and in fact more reliably without the need for slogans from people, who are trained to fool you.
There are whole countries which do not or did not have advertisements, yet people could find what they need. I've never heard or seen an ad of a Korg groovebox, but I've bought it because I saw fellow musicians using it and I decided I want it. How did I manage it without ads?
The difference between ads and word of mouth is that the latter does not lie. So why choose ads?
If the ads are able to peacefully convince people that they should buy something, then there's nothing wrong with it, and the fact that demand reflects what people want is still true.
If production didn't match more or less what people want and marketing were enough to make people buy things, everyone would have their homes full of useless things. Production would be random: companies wouldn't bother producing useful things. They would just produce things at random because people would buy them anyway. Or maybe the would produce nothing at all. They just would use marketing to convince people to give surrender all their riches to them. The standard of living wouldn't raise anywhere. It would be unimaginable chaos. Society would be wiped out. In fact, capitalism and socialism would be exactly the same. In a socialist society, a group of persons decides what is to be produced and how. This is the same: a group of people decides what is to be produced and how.
Sure, some ads lie. So do politicians. People won't keep buying useless things forever. If a person buys something, it's because she wants to satisfy a given want or need. If that something turns out to be useless, then that want remains unsatisfied. The person won't buy the same thing again. A company that sells useless things cannot survive because companies that do produce useful things will emerge, and people will buy things from them, not from the others. Unless, of course, that violence prevents these new companies from emerging.
Quote from: "Jojo"I see that you are extremely biased, or else you would probably also mention Software like Mozilla Firefox which is known to be free software, and it is certainly not made by capitalists. Remember when they dropped Win9x support, eh? Remember how it feels running Firefox on a P3-500? I heavily doubt that Mozilla Corp. has some deal with hardware manufacturers.
Yeah. Developers just use more resources because such resources are available and it's just not worth it to attempt difficult technical solutions in order to make the new software work with old hardware when almost everyone is getting new hardware. Hardware gets cheaper and cheaper.
I'm a developer and worked several years in a company that developed a product. Whether to maintain or not backwards compatibility is a tradeoff. It depends on the clients you have and on the effort you have to make. Software code gets smelly after years of changes and fixes. When you throw it out and make a new one, there is no reason to make it work in hardware that is ten years old.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"QuoteDo you think that software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies?
Exactly. In fact, I do not think this, I know this from people who are working in the industry.
Well, as a professional member of this industry, I can categorically state that this is not the case, at least in 99.9% of the cases. Software developers make use of the resources available to them, and advances in hardware mean that more ambitious software can be developed.
I would go so far as to suggest that were it not for the rapidity of software and hardware development and enhancement, a great many humanitarian and medical systems would either not be available at all, or would not perform as well as they currently do.
Hm. I guess at this point we got our agrees and disagrees, so I am not sure if there is much point debating this on.
But just to show you that I believe the situation is not as simple, let me comment two things.
QuoteWell, as a professional member of this industry, I can categorically state that this is not the case, at least in 99.9% of the cases.
In order for that to be true, you have to be exposed to 100% of the industry. How can you say that in 99% of the cases it is not true? Have you seen it all? By simply being a programmer you are not entitled to all information in the indystry. In my experience it is true - I am talking not about Small Sofware Company, I am talking about Microsoft & IBM. Those deals actually exist - and some of them are publicly known.
QuoteI would go so far as to suggest that were it not for the rapidity of software and hardware development and enhancement, a great many humanitarian and medical systems would either not be available at all, or would not perform as well as they currently do.
This is turning the situation upside down.
And as for medical systems, perhaps this will also sound like paranoia to you, but in the medical world the companies actually go as far as to create the sicknesses themselves to sell their medicine. Doctors get the percentage from selling certain medicines to their patients, even if they do not really need it. So the so-called advancements are highly questionable in their necessity.
QuoteYeah. Developers just use more resources because such resources are available and it's just not worth it to attempt difficult technical solutions in order to make the new software work with old hardware when almost everyone is getting new hardware. Hardware gets cheaper and cheaper.
Ha! This is the same thing I am saying. But if the hardware would not get old so fast, there would be no need for such a high upkeep. This might sound debatable, it is, but I tend to believe, at least with the available information today, that such fast hardware advancements are not needed as they undermine the real technological breakthrough. For instance, in music there are a lot of advancements in the software and one might say this is good and it is progress, but I sometimes wish the music software would stop somewhere on the 2005 level and stop advancing, since instead of focusing on being creative people are only upgrading and upgrading their sequencers and plugins.
Quote
This is turning the situation upside down.
No, it's just a different view on the situation, which should definitely also not be neglected.
Quote, but in the medical world the companies actually go as far as to create the sicknesses themselves
Yeah, now please stop with all those conspiracy theories. Looking at the current situation with the H1N1 disease of course, one might think that it's all about making money, but what I see here is also the media being a big part of the "hype".
Conspiracy theories are not always absurd. A conspiracy theory to fake a moon landing is out of the boundaries of reason. But a cross-company agreement is nothing fancy, really.
Guys, I am not saying the whole world is corrupted. But there are a lot of nasty things in the business world.
its...kinda offtopic, but the H1N1 "thing" is a really powerful conspiracy (not conspiracy theory), most of the facts will be clear to anyone who watch this video, altho' she speaks with massive amount of information, so its not easy to keep the focus all the time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ranNpzlXIo
(highly recommended to check all of the parts, who is interested about it ocf.)
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Conspiracy theories are not always absurd. A conspiracy theory to fake a moon landing is out of the boundaries of reason. But a cross-company agreement is nothing fancy, really.
Guys, I am not saying the whole world is corrupted. But there are a lot of nasty things in the business world.
A cross-company agreement cannot be sustained in the long run. If the companies don't satisfy what consumers want, other companies will appear and will do it for them. Also, game theory shows that such agreements are unstable. Not honouring the agreement is a good chance of profit, so sooner or later, such agreements fall, especially because usually some of the companies are more efficient than the others, and therefore the agreement is no good for them.
Of course, if government prohibits other companies from being created, then the need for satisfying consumers disappears.
let me throw in here that companies do use patents - like buying a competitive patent - to prevent the development of products or improvements. Why? because it is cheaper and / or more profitable to buy the patent than develop what the patent covers. Other inventions are never produced until the patent runs out and license fees are no longer applicable.
Of course this is ammunition to say patents are bad but also show the perversion of any market ideal - companies rarely think of consumers - or the public - first.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"But not all free software gets upgraded so aggressively. In fact, most is not when it is completed. There is simply no reason to. It can get slight upgrades, but it will not change much and if Some Software was released as a stable 2.0 release, chances are it will take it several years to become 2.9 or 3.0, not 6 months.
With Firefox it is certainly competition with proprietary browsers. If there was no competition, there would be no rush.
Examples of aggresively updated free software...
Google search engine
Orbiter space flight simulator (www.orbitersim.com)
Google Earth
Linux
Buy none, get one free Is the business model of the future one where the customer no longer pays? Already products in the digital marketplace are being given away free, yet companies are still making profits. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7811481.stm
Quote from: "PPH"People won't keep buying useless things forever. If a person buys something, it's because she wants to satisfy a given want or need. If that something turns out to be useless, then that want remains unsatisfied. The person won't buy the same thing again. A company that sells useless things cannot survive because companies that do produce useful things will emerge, and people will buy things from them, not from the others. Unless, of course, that violence prevents these new companies from emerging.
There are 2 concepts of value. One is "exchange value" (perceived value) and the other is "usefulness value" (real value). The gap between those two is a toxic asset.
You may have a $1000 pair of shoes and a $40 pair of shoes. From usefulness point of view, both are covers for your feet. But perceived value, given some social values, distort perceived value, creating artificial and imaginary value that allows sellers to make more money.
This perceived value is what makes cheap stuff to be expensive, and it helps speculation and the creation of toxic assets.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Conspiracy theories are not always absurd. A conspiracy theory to fake a moon landing is out of the boundaries of reason. But a cross-company agreement is nothing fancy, really.
Guys, I am not saying the whole world is corrupted. But there are a lot of nasty things in the business world.
Right.
Corruption threatens "soul and fabric" of U.S.: FBI
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B74AI20091208
What I do is that I try to evaluate conspiracy theories on my own, without taking sides.
There are plenty of senseless conspiracy theories in US that say humans do not have an effect on climate. It includes "sun heating Earth" (The Telegraph UK) where NASA says we are facing low sun activity, "vapor as greenhouse gas" theory while chemistry says water has more heat capacity than water so if water became vapor Earth would cool down, or "since science models are inaccurate, earth is cooling down" (Wall Street Journal) and many other stupid theories.
Here some evidence of the problem.
QuoteAn animated journey through the Earth's climate history
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2009/copenhagen/8386319.stm
This decade 'warmest on record'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8400905.stm
'Scary' climate message from past
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8299426.stm
Science Explained: Greenhouse effect in a bottle
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394168.stm
But one that is true is the documentary "Money as debt"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2550156453790090544#
I have checked this out with non US economists who studied macroeconomics to have an impartial view.
And you may like this BBC documentary on the same matter
QuoteEpisode 1: Dreams Of Avarice (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIe3-5GyopE&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=0
Episode 2: Human Bondage (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvyRQlXoMA0&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=5
Episode 3: Blowing Bubbles (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KIFSyEyv4g&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=10
Episode 5: Safe As Houses (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajNffYAhILs&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=20
Episode 6: Chimerica (A Financial History Of The World)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usgHmRfYYQ8&feature=PlayList&p=FEC454E538F8CE64&index=25
I did not include episode 4 for it has some statements that I consider flawed, because it defends a private insurance system that failed in US and caused 47 million not to be insured.
Quote from: "bvanoudtshoorn"Quote from: "Louigi Verona"QuoteDo you think that software not supporting older systems is made by capitalists who work together with hardware companies?
Exactly. In fact, I do not think this, I know this from people who are working in the industry.
Well, as a professional member of this industry, I can categorically state that this is not the case, at least in 99.9% of the cases. Software developers make use of the resources available to them, and advances in hardware mean that more ambitious software can be developed.
I would go so far as to suggest that were it not for the rapidity of software and hardware development and enhancement, a great many humanitarian and medical systems would either not be available at all, or would not perform as well as they currently do.
You think like a developer, not like a customer.
It may work for a company that is willing to pay $150,000 for a 24/7 non stop support. But there are companies that can hardly renew their equipment because of budget contraints, let alone making new software.
In 2004, there were approximately 24.7 million businesses in the United States, according to Office of Advocacy estimates. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates there were 29.3 million nonfarm business tax returns in 2004; however, this number may overestimate the number of firms, as one business can operate more than one taxable entity.
Census data show there were 5.7 million firms with employees and 17.6 million without employees in 2002 (and 18.6 million without employees in 2003). Applying the sole proprietorship growth rates to the nonemployer figures and similar Department of Labor growth rates to the employer figures produces the 24.7 million figure. Small firms with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of the 24.7 million businesses, as the most recent data show there are 17,000 large businesses.
Quote from: "PPH"A cross-company agreement cannot be sustained in the long run. If the companies don't satisfy what consumers want, other companies will appear and will do it for them. Also, game theory shows that such agreements are unstable. Not honouring the agreement is a good chance of profit, so sooner or later, such agreements fall, especially because usually some of the companies are more efficient than the others, and therefore the agreement is no good for them.
Ha! Well what you are speaking about is slightly different.
Let me give you an example of what kind of a cross-agreement I am talking about. The situation is simplistic, but actually pretty close to how it is usually done.
You have Microsoft, a video card company and a game company, which are developing an anticipated game.
Microsoft develops Vista. Vista has almost no backward compatibility, so Microsoft has to make sure people make a switch. One of the things they do is go to a video card company and say - let's make a deal - you do not develop drivers for Win XP, MacOS and GNU/Linux, only for Windows Vista. You can develop those drivers only after 6 month after Vista release. In return Microsoft arranges for the video card company to be advertised as compatible with the new Windows and included into Vista laptops.
At the same time the video card company needs people to switch to their card. So they go to the game company and say - hey fellas, can you make the game more demanding? Our video card will provide for that, so you can have more resources (yay, progress!) and people will have to switch. In fact, we will fund your game development.
So in the end what happens is that the new OS came out and people have to buy "better" video card in order to use OS and to give them even more reason the new 3D shooter requires that new OS and the new video card to run.
This is how it usually works. And for the companies it is a great way to work. And customers
sort of get a video card that seems better and a new OS, which seems better - because it supports the new card and the new game and because seemingly it is better resources.
But in the end it means a false feeling of progress, badly written game code and unnecessary tech race. We are sort of jumping forward without actually exploring one step at a time.
Consider - in order to benefit from more resources, one has to push to the limit. But that is rarely done.
I would say, Blizzard is a company that creates games that are really nice and which are very long-term. Most of their games would run even on older hardware at the time of release.
Pablo: just to make things clear, I do not thing Linux is agressive development. When kernel versions are like 2.6.31 to 2.6.32 in a year this is not aggressive development. By agressive development I mean smth along the lines of 2.0 to 3.0
Also, I wouldn't put the OS kernel development cycles with software. While there are examples of aggressive releases, which I argue are tied to competition with proprietary vendors, most of the free software development is pretty calm. It might be active and fast, but it is not rushing releases and certainly almost never creates new incompatible versions of the same software.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Pablo: just to make things clear, I do not thing Linux is agressive development. When kernel versions are like 2.6.31 to 2.6.32 in a year this is not aggressive development. By agressive development I mean smth along the lines of 2.0 to 3.0
Also, I wouldn't put the OS kernel development cycles with software. While there are examples of aggressive releases, which I argue are tied to competition with proprietary vendors, most of the free software development is pretty calm. It might be active and fast, but it is not rushing releases and certainly almost never creates new incompatible versions of the same software.
You talk about aggressive... significant changes does not mean innovation or usefulness or usability or playability.
For example, if you compare Microsoft Image Composer (MIC) with MicrograFX Picture Publisher 7 (PP7), you may find that MIC takes as much time to load as Photoshop but with half the features, while PP7 runs fast and has about 80% of Photoshop features. PP7 is a very old software which runs in Windows 98 and also Windows XP. PP7 is very cheap, about $4, 5 years ago.
Free software may be pretty "calm" but as a user I do not care. Most of the features I use are there.
You see innovative games like Star Control II, where Accolade wanted to make a sequel with a smaller budget, so the original developers refused because it wouldn't cover costs. The result was Star Control III which was a crappy game that failed, so Accolade argued "market lost interest".
The problem of commercial software is that it is tied to a budget. No budget, no aggressive updates. With freeware it is just a matter of enthusiasm.
Freeware may be slower, but it is constantly evolving. Companies offer products faster but they are just like bursts and very often you see commercial software discontinued. Fans who make freeware do not use to let down other enthusiasts, and if they can't they usually release as opensource, so other people take care of the project.
If you see Orbiter Space Flight Simulator (orbitersim.com) which is free and "slow" and if you compare it to Space Shuttle Simulator (http://www.space-shuttle-mission.com/) which competes with S3 freeware (http://www.shuttlesim.be/) you may realize that even if Orbiter is a bit simpler, it covers a wider scope and unlimited playability.
David413, who makes the shuttle addons for Orbiter, usually release special packs when a shuttle mission takes place.
With Orbiter you can build space stations, travel to other planets, make slingshots, deliver cargo, EVA missions, etc... With Space Shuttle you can only fly a space shuttle mission.
Orbiter is the best renderer of Earth these days.
There are other free softwares that are the best around. Stellarium, Celestia, Orbitron, etc.
And if it is about companies releasing free software, you may see the free racing game by Volvo.
Louigi, I wonder what you have to say about the demoscene. Do Farbrausch or Fairlight have a secret contract with nvidia because their demos are so resource-hungry?
QuoteYou talk about aggressive... significant changes does not mean innovation or usefulness or usability or playability.
Exactly! This is my argument exactly. Read the posts which I wrote previously.
Jojo: No, I do not think that Fairlight or Farbrausch have contracts with nvidia.
Why should your argument be valid for "all the rest of the industry" then? Most Farbrausch members are working in game business.
Me and my business partner (he much more so) have worked in the game industry and I simply know that deals between game companies and video card manufacturers are a fact. Read it up. Read how Carmack and idSoftware guys were working with NVidia, but then had an argument and switched to working with ATI. Read up how well Quake 3 runs on ATI and how much worse it runs on NVidia.
Now if Farbrausch specifically would have deals with manufacturers - I would not be surprised.
But as for the demoscene in general, demoscene is an underground subculture which is not about money and it is nearly impossible to market. I do not think it is reasonable to pay some demogroup so that they show their cool demo to 1500 people on some demoparty and say - hey, we did this with NVidia card. Half of the audience would say - we don't care, we write demos for Amiga and 486.
QuoteHalf of the audience would say - we don't care, we write demos for Amiga and 486.
Actually, they wouldn't. Have you even ever visited a demoparty?
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Read up how well Quake 3 runs on ATI and how much worse it runs on NVidia.
Like this? (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/q3videoroundup2/page7.asp)
Quote from: "Jojo"QuoteHalf of the audience would say - we don't care, we write demos for Amiga and 486.
Actually, they wouldn't. Have you even ever visited a demoparty?
Yep. Several times actually. Parties I cannot visit I watch online.
Anyway, I made my point. Basically, you question my argument that game companies make deals with video card vendors and ask a question that perhaps I believe that demosceners make deals too. I told you that I find it rather unlikely. What else do you want me to say?
g: Sorry, my wrong, I meant Doom 3. It is also quite possible - and I apologize for this - that I am replacing ATI with Nvidia. Here I wouldn't be sure, since i always mess up hardware vendors.
QuoteWhat else do you want me to say?
Maybe you should just consider one time that not every game studio has a contract with nvidia or amd or some other company. I'm not even sure if those companies could afford this (after nvidia even decided not to sponsor Breakpoint 2009 anymore because money was "lacking" - well, maybe it was used to sponsor the next GTA?).
Quote from: "uncloned"let me throw in here that companies do use patents - like buying a competitive patent - to prevent the development of products or improvements. Why? because it is cheaper and / or more profitable to buy the patent than develop what the patent covers. Other inventions are never produced until the patent runs out and license fees are no longer applicable.
Of course this is ammunition to say patents are bad but also show the perversion of any market ideal - companies rarely think of consumers - or the public - first.
This is a typical example of how government intervention screws up the market. Patents are government granted monopolies. They create incentives for companies to register patents instead of addressing consumer's needs.
Still, they must patent things that consumers need, or else the patents are useless. But yes, patents are detrimental.
Quote from: "PabloLuna"Quote from: "Louigi Verona"But not all free software gets upgraded so aggressively. In fact, most is not when it is completed. There is simply no reason to. It can get slight upgrades, but it will not change much and if Some Software was released as a stable 2.0 release, chances are it will take it several years to become 2.9 or 3.0, not 6 months.
With Firefox it is certainly competition with proprietary browsers. If there was no competition, there would be no rush.
Examples of aggresively updated free software...
Google search engine
Orbiter space flight simulator (www.orbitersim.com)
Google Earth
Linux
Buy none, get one free
Is the business model of the future one where the customer no longer pays? Already products in the digital marketplace are being given away free, yet companies are still making profits. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7811481.stm
Quote from: "PPH"People won't keep buying useless things forever. If a person buys something, it's because she wants to satisfy a given want or need. If that something turns out to be useless, then that want remains unsatisfied. The person won't buy the same thing again. A company that sells useless things cannot survive because companies that do produce useful things will emerge, and people will buy things from them, not from the others. Unless, of course, that violence prevents these new companies from emerging.
There are 2 concepts of value. One is "exchange value" (perceived value) and the other is "usefulness value" (real value). The gap between those two is a toxic asset.
You may have a $1000 pair of shoes and a $40 pair of shoes. From usefulness point of view, both are covers for your feet. But perceived value, given some social values, distort perceived value, creating artificial and imaginary value that allows sellers to make more money.
This perceived value is what makes cheap stuff to be expensive, and it helps speculation and the creation of toxic assets.
Value is subjective. It depends on who is valuing and on the situation. There is no such thing as "real value". Value is not a physical property of things. Something has use-value if the person considering the thing finds it useful. It has exchange-value if it possible to find someone else who is willing to give up something he has in exchange for the thing.
A computer does not have use-value for someone who hates computers and doesn't know how to use it. But for me, it has value. If human beings didn't exist, it wouldn't have value at all. Moreover, asking for its value would be absurd.
So, let's take the two pair of shoes. If someone is willing to forego $1000 for a given pair of shoes, it means that, for that person, these shoes are more valuable than $1000. For you, obviously, they are less valuable than $1000. So, the shoes do not have an "artificial value". It's just that your value scale and the other person's are different. That's a natural thing, because you two are different people. And that is what makes exchange possible. If everyone valued everything in the same way, no exchange would be possible.
No, no, no you got it wrong. The $1000 shoes were bought by the woman in your life and you get the $40 pair. That is how that works. :-)
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Quote from: "PPH"A cross-company agreement cannot be sustained in the long run. If the companies don't satisfy what consumers want, other companies will appear and will do it for them. Also, game theory shows that such agreements are unstable. Not honouring the agreement is a good chance of profit, so sooner or later, such agreements fall, especially because usually some of the companies are more efficient than the others, and therefore the agreement is no good for them.
Ha! Well what you are speaking about is slightly different.
Let me give you an example of what kind of a cross-agreement I am talking about. The situation is simplistic, but actually pretty close to how it is usually done.
You have Microsoft, a video card company and a game company, which are developing an anticipated game.
Microsoft develops Vista. Vista has almost no backward compatibility, so Microsoft has to make sure people make a switch. One of the things they do is go to a video card company and say - let's make a deal - you do not develop drivers for Win XP, MacOS and GNU/Linux, only for Windows Vista. You can develop those drivers only after 6 month after Vista release. In return Microsoft arranges for the video card company to be advertised as compatible with the new Windows and included into Vista laptops.
At the same time the video card company needs people to switch to their card. So they go to the game company and say - hey fellas, can you make the game more demanding? Our video card will provide for that, so you can have more resources (yay, progress!) and people will have to switch. In fact, we will fund your game development.
So in the end what happens is that the new OS came out and people have to buy "better" video card in order to use OS and to give them even more reason the new 3D shooter requires that new OS and the new video card to run.
This is how it usually works. And for the companies it is a great way to work. And customers sort of get a video card that seems better and a new OS, which seems better - because it supports the new card and the new game and because seemingly it is better resources.
But in the end it means a false feeling of progress, badly written game code and unnecessary tech race. We are sort of jumping forward without actually exploring one step at a time.
Consider - in order to benefit from more resources, one has to push to the limit. But that is rarely done.
I would say, Blizzard is a company that creates games that are really nice and which are very long-term. Most of their games would run even on older hardware at the time of release.
Yeah. And Vista was bad and people didn't buy it. Microsoft was forced to support XP for a longer time.
If people actually buy Vista, the card and the game, then it means they found it worth it. They weren't forced to do it. They chose to buy the game. I bet many didn't take that deal. If the deal was so bad, then nobody would have taken it. The company wouldn't have sold many games. Microsoft wouldn't have sold Vista. The hardware company wouldn't have sold the card. They would all have lost money.
By what standard do you say there was no progress? If people bought the game under these conditions, it means they found the new situation, with Vista, the game and the hardware, more than the previous situation.
Quote from: "uncloned"No, no, no you got it wrong. The $1000 shoes were bought by the woman in your life and you get the $40 pair. That is how that works. :-)
LOL :lol:
QuoteIf people actually buy Vista, the card and the game, then it means they found it worth it. They weren't forced to do it. They chose to buy the game. I bet many didn't take that deal. If the deal was so bad, then nobody would have taken it. The company wouldn't have sold many games. Microsoft wouldn't have sold Vista. The hardware company wouldn't have sold the card. They would all have lost money.
I cannot agree with what you say here.
In general, yes, people are forced or even tricked a lot of times. Hype makes people buy games which otherwise they wouldn't have bought, etc. In fact, a lot of businesses are doing this - creating hype around products which you do not really need - by that I don't mean it's crap, but that they are unnecessary, you can live without them quite efficiently.
Vista was a failure, but many people use it because millions of laptops were preloaded with it and not a lot of people would care to switch, even if they were not satisfied and rather stayed with XP. Microsoft made it difficult to switch back, by using hardware that is not supported in XP or that was not initially supported in XP.
Your general argument is that people are not tricked into buying or using things and that everyone is outright smart and always chooses the best deal. I cannot agree with that.
QuoteMaybe you should just consider one time that not every game studio has a contract with nvidia or amd or some other company.
No offense meant, Jojo, but maybe you should take it easier. In this discussion you always seem to try to push my words to the extreme.
I did not say that all game companies have contracts with hardware vendors - of course not. I said it is one of th cross-company agreement schemes that exists. No more, no less. No need to try to shift my words to a different meaning.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"
I cannot agree with what you say here.
In general, yes, people are forced or even tricked a lot of times. Hype makes people buy games which otherwise they wouldn't have bought, etc. In fact, a lot of businesses are doing this - creating hype around products which you do not really need - by that I don't mean it's crap, but that they are unnecessary, you can live without them quite efficiently.
Vista was a failure, but many people use it because millions of laptops were preloaded with it and not a lot of people would care to switch, even if they were not satisfied and rather stayed with XP. Microsoft made it difficult to switch back, by using hardware that is not supported in XP or that was not initially supported in XP.
Your general argument is that people are not tricked into buying or using things and that everyone is outright smart and always chooses the best deal. I cannot agree with that.
Creating hype is not forcing. It's convincing. Ultimately, people bought the thing voluntarily. You think they are wrong, because you think the product wasn't worth buying. By what standard do you say this? By yours. It is not worth for you. But it is for others.
Tricking is another matter. Tricking is when someone says a given product has certain features, and it actually doesn't. For example, a charlatan may sell a beverage by saying it cures diseases, but the beveage actually does nothing. This kind of thing is a crime, and has nothing to do with creating hype.
I don't say everyone is smart and chooses the best deal. People make mistakes. So what? If someone buys something and then realizes he shouldn't have, this is not the seller's fault, unless he lied about the features of the thing. Also, before the person bought it, she wanted it. Making mistakes is a natural thing. Do you have the recipe for avoiding such mistakes? Do you think if someone else, say, the Emperor, chose what to produce instead of people, no mistakes would be made? How? He wouldn't even know what people want, so he would never get it right.
So, demand does reflect what people want, and as production reflects demand, it reflects what people want, which, for me is what is important for society (which is what this discussion was about). If you don't believe in this last part, they you believe someone, a dictator, king or whatever, should decide, instead of people, what they should want. I don't think this will make people happy, and it also makes it impossible to coordinate production in a rational way.
QuoteCreating hype is not forcing. It's convincing. Ultimately, people bought the thing voluntarily. You think they are wrong, because you think the product wasn't worth buying. By what standard do you say this? By yours. It is not worth for you. But it is for others.
It is difficult not to agree with you what you say here. Basically, taken out of context, I agree.
However, let me point out several delicate things here.
1. You cannot always draw a line between convincing and forcing. If you have friends who work in advertising companies, talk to them. They will tell you a lot of interesting things. There are many psychological techniques which basically force people to want something, seemingly giving them a choice. Subliminal stimuli - heard of that? There are other, more effective techniques.
2. When we are speaking about standards by which we judge other people or the society in general, while there are certainly personal opinions through which we look at society, we should not undermine the objective part of such an observation. By creating a mythical "it's just you personal opinion" we undermine any observation at all.
But when in this discussion I am speaking about a certain lack of progress, I do not base that simply on my "personal opinion", I base it on observations and on certain facts.
I am not sure if I made it clear, I have to find a better phrasing for this.
But in the context of our discussion, I do not simply say those products are not worth for me, I observe that those products do not mean a lot to society - that they are unnecessary and would not massively sell if no special conditions were set up by the manufacturers. This is not just personal opinion, it is a conclusion based on observation of the methods used by manufacturers. If the products would be so necessary that people would buy them anyway and advertising would only be used as means of informing people, then certain very expensive things companies do to market their products become a meaningless waste of rather large sums of money.
Also, in general I do not think there is something as a solely personal opinion, which is locked onto itself and has no connection to the real world, when we are discussing society.
I can say - I don't care about playing Doom 3 - and that would be my personal opinion. And based on that personal opinion I can say that Doom 3 is unnecessary and it would be indeed only my personal opinion, because playing the game or not concerns only me.
But in case of opinions about things which are not just some individual past time, but part of a larger process, like the development of culture, it is more difficult to have a locked personal opinion. You make conclusions based on observation of the life of society, not on your personal experiences, which are limited to your individual existence anyway and cannot be used as a basis for any meaningful conclusions.
Do you understand what I mean?
Let's summ it up.
I believe that demand nowadays is created artificially. Not in all fields and not in all cases, of course, but in many cases, especially in the world of technology. It is created by marketing techniques and by playing on the general philosophy of the modern culture which assumes that if something is new, it must be good.
As far as I understand your view, you do not think there is any forcing going on and that people get what they want.
If this is so, we at least understand the point of our disagreement.
But I further argue that the progress itself is artificial, as it is a progress in quantity, but not in quality. Because companies have profit as a goal, rather than actual technological research, a lot of what is done is done not very well and only so that it well sell quickly. A lot of products are short-term, so that people would have reason to upgrade.
As far as I understand, that view is challenged by Jojo, although I do not understand his reasoning.
About demand; I think you refer to what people "need" and those of us disagreeing with you refer to what people "want".
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"I believe that demand nowadays is created artificially.
we don't really "need" much stuff in our life, water, food, some daily resting and a place that can protect us from rain/cold/wind/etc.
Anything else is a matter of choice, depends if people want them or not. It's the persons job to decide if the product is useful to him or not. I can imagine some high class business meeting, the people there could look down on you and may avoid to take you seriously if you not have 1000$ shoes, 5000$ clothes and a 20000$ car, but some cheap chinese ones, a t-shirt and a bike.
There are stuff that are expected from you in some level of lifestyle and stuffs that you chose to have, because you can afford or simply want it. Even i have spent sometimes double amount of money on less than 100% more effective upgrade because i've decided, that it will be well worth for me to do so. There is no such think like an ultimate bad deal (based on any personal experience or observations), because if the deal sounds good for both of the clients, it IS a good deal for both of the clients.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"
1. You cannot always draw a line between convincing and forcing. If you have friends who work in advertising companies, talk to them. They will tell you a lot of interesting things. There are many psychological techniques which basically force people to want something, seemingly giving them a choice. Subliminal stimuli - heard of that? There are other, more effective techniques.
I draw the line in the existence or absence of aggression (violence or threats). I know of subliminal stimuli, but they can't make me buy something useless for me. For example, I have no use for a lipstick. An ad won't possibly cause me to buy a lipstick for myself. It might make me buy product of company A instead of product of company B, as long as I don't see much difference between the two. If one is way more useful than the other, I don't see how an ad can make me change my mind. And if it does, I'll realize, after I bought the product, that I made a mistake.
So, in the long run, such tactics can't enable companies to completely control demand. If these techniques were so powerful, all companies would use them, and people would stop buying things at some point, because they would think buying things doesn't work. The economy would collapse. Like I said before, we would observe a world in which houses would be full of useless things. Production would be random and the standard of living would never improve. It would be chaos. This is not happening, so I guess these techniques are not that powerful.
After all, one of the main principles of marketing is that before making ads you must have a good product; something people can use.
Quote
2. When we are speaking about standards by which we judge other people or the society in general, while there are certainly personal opinions through which we look at society, we should not undermine the objective part of such an observation. By creating a mythical "it's just you personal opinion" we undermine any observation at all.
But when in this discussion I am speaking about a certain lack of progress, I do not base that simply on my "personal opinion", I base it on observations and on certain facts.
I am not sure if I made it clear, I have to find a better phrasing for this.
But in the context of our discussion, I do not simply say those products are not worth for me, I observe that those products do not mean a lot to society - that they are unnecessary and would not massively sell if no special conditions were set up by the manufacturers. This is not just personal opinion, it is a conclusion based on observation of the methods used by manufacturers. If the products would be so necessary that people would buy them anyway and advertising would only be used as means of informing people, then certain very expensive things companies do to market their products become a meaningless waste of rather large sums of money.
Reality is objective. That's for sure. But "progress" means to go from a worse state to a better state. There is no objective way of evaluating that. Different people want different things. Society is made of people, individuals. Society doesn't have an existence independent from the individuals that compose it. What's good for society is what's good for people. People make choices according to what want they most urgently want to satisfy. The sum of those choices that relate to exchangeable goods (ie things that can be bought and sold) determines general demand and supply. So, demand reflects what "society" wants in terms of exchangeable goods (not in terms of things such as "friendship", "goodness", etc).
Quote
Also, in general I do not think there is something as a solely personal opinion, which is locked onto itself and has no connection to the real world, when we are discussing society.
I can say - I don't care about playing Doom 3 - and that would be my personal opinion. And based on that personal opinion I can say that Doom 3 is unnecessary and it would be indeed only my personal opinion, because playing the game or not concerns only me.
But in case of opinions about things which are not just some individual past time, but part of a larger process, like the development of culture, it is more difficult to have a locked personal opinion. You make conclusions based on observation of the life of society, not on your personal experiences, which are limited to your individual existence anyway and cannot be used as a basis for any meaningful conclusions.
Do you understand what I mean?
I'm not sure I understand. But I think what I said above pretty much applies to this.
Quote
Because companies have profit as a goal, rather than actual technological research, a lot of what is done is done not very well and only so that it well sell quickly. A lot of products are short-term, so that people would have reason to upgrade.
As far as I understand, that view is challenged by Jojo, although I do not understand his reasoning.
Again, you're using your own value judgements to assess the decisions of other people. A company makes profits if it satisfies the wants of the consumers (in a free market, at least; and to a degree, in a mixed economy, which is what we have everywhere to varying degrees). So, companies aim at profits, because that's the way most people get what they want. You say this way they don't seek technological research: they do. They seek that technological research which will make them more profits, ie will satisfy more people in the market. Products are short term? Maybe that's what people want.
I agree on a lot of what you say.
But I do think that it is possible to more or less form public opinion and public demand. At least to a certain extent. Of course you cannot market an absolutely useless product, a product can indeed be attractive and desirable at the moment, but useless in the long run.
You can say that if a person decides to buy a socially cool product, then he is getting what he wants, but in my opinion this is superficial argument.
Let me explain what I mean.
If a person is taking drugs, it is obvious he has problems, but you can basically say - well, he is getting what he wants. And he does, doesn't he? But we know that if a drug addict is getting what he wants, eventually he might simply die.
A person who is trying to sell drugs will try to create a demand. And of course not everybody would give in, right? A person who has a tendency to give in, would. You might say that if he gave in, he had a need, albeit a hidden one. And a superficial argument can be - well cool. Everyone gets what they want.
But this is not how a person who lives in a society should look at things. Because we live amongst each other, we have responsibility for one another. This is not just an opinion, it is an objective means of survival for a society. If people would not share responsibility for each other, society would not survive.
And with a drug addict situation, it is clear if a person has psychological problems that create a tendency to go for drugs, the inertia of society surrounding him might help him either to recover and solve his problems or become an addict.
I am trying to say the same thing about economy. You might be giving people what they want at the moment. You are giving them a choice, but you are creating an atmosphere with ads which will create a thought model. Yes, eventually each person makes his choices, but weaker people might give in even to something you would consider cheap advertisement.
I hope I made my opinion more clear. If you do not agree, it is ok, I just thought that you might have misunderstood what I meant.
ps: and as for short-term products which dominate today's market, I think it is even more superficial to say that people are making their own choices and that this is just my opinion and my own values, superimposed on other people.
I once again want to stress that this is not just my subjective personal liking. If you are building a house and you build it in a way that it is estimated to serve 50 years and another person is building a house that is estimated to stay around for 500 years, the greater value of the second house is not a matter of personal opinion.
When I am saying that long-term products are more beneficial to society, those are not just my subjective likings and values, it is reasoning, based on reality.
A company that is focused on short-term profit, and most companies are working for short-term profit, since long term profit is too uncertain to be estimated and thus too large a risk, will inevitably tend to create short-term products. By these I mean, say, making laptops that are guaranteed to break in 2-3 years. Creating a program and then releasing a new version with no backwards compatibility, etc.
This short-term philosophy greatly influences decisions made during research. Technologies which would make things more reliable and long-term are usually dismissed in favor of research that would make things cheap to produce - and notice the difference between these two paradigms.
As for what people want, it is also important to note that if you have limited choices, you of course will want something among those limited choices. But it does not mean that people do not want something else, something that they have no means to produce. And because the industry values profit above all, usually people do not get what they would really want. They get what they get and they accept it because they do not have much choices.
It is like with TV:
- Why do you show so many soap operas?
-Well, people like them! Look, they are all watching them.
But are people actually given a choice of what to watch on TV? Of course, not. They watch it just because it is there. And although people might choose not to watch, for many various reasons people would tend to watch what's there rather than not watch anything.
=)
Microsoft admits code theft for Chinese blog Juku
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8415597.stm
Piracy?
Strictly speaking, reusing code is as natural as anything. But considering Microsoft is a company that "respects intellectual property", the attack on them makes sense.
No decrease in illegal downloading, says BPI
The number of people downloading music illegally is not decreasing, despite the availability of new legal services, according to a music industry research.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8420484.stm
It looks like the business model will need to change.
Economy is about human behavior, not about laws.
Not even Gandhi could change the behavior of his followers, I doubt a government or a law can do it.
You guys could surely open a up a blog with this stuff.
Quote from: "g"Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Read up how well Quake 3 runs on ATI and how much worse it runs on NVidia.
Like this? (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/q3videoroundup2/page7.asp)
do you play quake3 online G? im @ retro-CTF :lol:
Quote from: "Samplekit"Quote from: "g"Quote from: "Louigi Verona"Read up how well Quake 3 runs on ATI and how much worse it runs on NVidia.
Like this? (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/q3videoroundup2/page7.asp)
do you play quake3 online G? im @ retro-CTF :lol:
Sorry, I'm a UT-person :) Or was.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"I agree on a lot of what you say.
But I do think that it is possible to more or less form public opinion and public demand. At least to a certain extent. Of course you cannot market an absolutely useless product, a product can indeed be attractive and desirable at the moment, but useless in the long run.
You can say that if a person decides to buy a socially cool product, then he is getting what he wants, but in my opinion this is superficial argument.
If the person buys the product, it's because she values the fact of using a socially cool product. Someone would have a hard time proving that providing products that are considered cool by society is not good for society.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"
Let me explain what I mean.
If a person is taking drugs, it is obvious he has problems, but you can basically say - well, he is getting what he wants. And he does, doesn't he? But we know that if a drug addict is getting what he wants, eventually he might simply die.
A person who is trying to sell drugs will try to create a demand. And of course not everybody would give in, right? A person who has a tendency to give in, would. You might say that if he gave in, he had a need, albeit a hidden one. And a superficial argument can be - well cool. Everyone gets what they want.
But this is not how a person who lives in a society should look at things. Because we live amongst each other, we have responsibility for one another. This is not just an opinion, it is an objective means of survival for a society. If people would not share responsibility for each other, society would not survive.
And with a drug addict situation, it is clear if a person has psychological problems that create a tendency to go for drugs, the inertia of society surrounding him might help him either to recover and solve his problems or become an addict.
I am trying to say the same thing about economy. You might be giving people what they want at the moment. You are giving them a choice, but you are creating an atmosphere with ads which will create a thought model. Yes, eventually each person makes his choices, but weaker people might give in even to something you would consider cheap advertisement.
I hope I made my opinion more clear. If you do not agree, it is ok, I just thought that you might have misunderstood what I meant.
I understand what you say, but let's recall what is under discussion here. Pablo said that software companies produced according to demand, and not according to what is good for society. That is what I contend is wrong.
Now, what does "good for society" mean? As society is made of individuals, it must mean "good for each individual in society". Now, all individuals are different. Very few things are good for everyone. And even those are "good in different degrees. Everything has a cost, and therefore, there are always tradeoffs.
You can't say, for example, "health is good, so let's forbid smoking". Yeah, everyone cares about health, but most are willing to run certain risks. Most people value life. But if they valued life in an absolute way, nobody would drive cars for the risks involved. These choices and tradeoffs manifest themselves in the demand in the market. And there is no other way of doing it, except having one person decide for everyone else.
There is no answer to the question "what is good for society?" that will satisfy a great majority, let alone everyone.
Now, people might be manipulated to a degree, but, if this is so, only to a small degree. If it weren't so, society would have broken down, for reasons I already explained.
The case of drugs is touchy, and a special case. You can say: if demand for drugs exist, then not always what demand indicates is what is good for society. You might have a point, although a case can be made that there is no objective way to assess that. I won't, though. But it is a very special case in which the very choices people made are influenced by the product they are consuming. This only happens with drugs. Hell, that's almost the definition of drugs and addiction, right?
Besides, another issue enters the scene: in these cases, you don't have infinite alternatives: either you let producers produce according to demand, or you have someone forcing decisions on people. So, it's not like demand not always reflects what's good for society and there is an alternative that ensures that only what is good for society is produces. That alternative doesn't exist. There is no perfect option.
Then, charging producers with producing according to demand instead of producing what is "good for society" doesn't make a lot of sense. Especially because there is no rational way of producing what is good for society. How does a producer determine that? Suppose it can determine that: then, either it is the same as what demand indicates (in which case the problem doesn't exist), or it is different, in which case the producer goes out of business. Ultimately, if all producers behaved like that, massive discoordination would ensue, because they wouldn't be producing what people want, so people wouldn't buy these things. The economy would collapse. So, paradoxically, by producing what's good for society instead of what society wants, producers would cause society to break down.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"ps: and as for short-term products which dominate today's market, I think it is even more superficial to say that people are making their own choices and that this is just my opinion and my own values, superimposed on other people.
I once again want to stress that this is not just my subjective personal liking. If you are building a house and you build it in a way that it is estimated to serve 50 years and another person is building a house that is estimated to stay around for 500 years, the greater value of the second house is not a matter of personal opinion.
This is not true: a house that can stay around for 500 years is more expensive. You are forgetting the tradeoffs in all your analysis. And tradeoffs are important: they are a consequence of the scarcity of resources without which none of these problems would exist. There is no objective way of saying tha the 500-year house is better than the 50-year one.
Quote
When I am saying that long-term products are more beneficial to society, those are not just my subjective likings and values, it is reasoning, based on reality.
Not so. They are more beneficial all other things being equal, which is a condition that doesn't occur in reality. Again: tradeoffs.
Quote
A company that is focused on short-term profit, and most companies are working for short-term profit, since long term profit is too uncertain to be estimated and thus too large a risk, will inevitably tend to create short-term products. By these I mean, say, making laptops that are guaranteed to break in 2-3 years. Creating a program and then releasing a new version with no backwards compatibility, etc.
Companies seek to survive in the long term too. There is no basis for saying companies seek short term profit. If that were true, investments would never be made.
Quote
As for what people want, it is also important to note that if you have limited choices, you of course will want something among those limited choices. But it does not mean that people do not want something else, something that they have no means to produce.
=)
Of course people have limited choices. That's called "scarcity". Choices are limited by reality, by nature. I'd like to fly like Superman, but as that is not possible, I content myself with walking.
Quote
And because the industry values profit above all, usually people do not get what they would really want. They get what they get and they accept it because they do not have much choices.
No. That's the very reason why people *does* get what they want. In a free market, profits can only be made by providing people with what they want.
Quote
It is like with TV:
- Why do you show so many soap operas?
-Well, people like them! Look, they are all watching them.
But are people actually given a choice of what to watch on TV? Of course, not. They watch it just because it is there. And although people might choose not to watch, for many various reasons people would tend to watch what's there rather than not watch anything.
But Louigi: TV shows that kind of stuff because that's what most people want. If it weren't, a TV channel could make lots of money by offering what people really want and thus selling lots of ads at the expense of the other TV-owner's stupidity.
Quote
But Louigi: TV shows that kind of stuff because that's what most people want. If it weren't, a TV channel could make lots of money by offering what people really want and thus selling lots of ads at the expense of the other TV-owner's stupidity.
No, that's not entirely true
there is another rather cold calculation you are forgetting about:
how much money is the show producers / sponsors are willing to pay to produce the show versus the amount of return expected. Day time TV does not have the highest number of people watching.
soap operas are exceeding cheap to make compared to say.... Star Trek NG with all of the computer graphics and special effects. (And STNG is really just a sci fi based soap opera)
Have you not noticed that prime time TV is much better in quality than day time TV? If you haven't - get sick and stay home and watch day time TV for a couple or three weeks (happened to me) - at least here in the states day time TV is abysmal unless you are a toddler.
And that is saying a lot since TV, in general, is pretty bad. TV doesn't at all compare to theater movies - even the made for TV movies are usually not as good. Every once in a while a stand out occurs usually because the actors or plot is especially good - not because the camera work is. And then the stand outs get a larger investment roughly in proportion to the size of the audience.
So, no, demand is not met unless it can be done at a profit. If it can't be done at a profit it won't happen from the private sector. The internet is the exception here - the pre-bubble bursting internet developed a new business model - give it away free - and it was indeed
new. The people who invested made their money back though.... by doing IPOs IF they had a business model and product that investors thought would succeed - such as Google.
The fact of the matter with few exceptions (think of the economy beyond the internet) a capitalistic society is not going to have serious business people giving away much of anything for free unless there is a perceived way to a profit. Its just a fact. Demand is only part of the story.
you need demand, investors, and a business model that yields a profit.
like the fire triangle if one is missing it won't happen.
PPH, a lot of what you say is reasonable commentary, I just have to provide some general info on what I mean and some things I did not mention. I would also like to comment several of your statements on which I have a difference of opinion and sometimes even first hand information.
1. Tradeoffs.
This is a very complex question. I would just briefly outline it, so you can see that in my analysis tradeoffs are part of the equation.
The problem lies in the general philosophy of society. If you go a century back, you would find out that people had a very different line of thinking. Something, that is considered normal and common today back in the days was rare and even non-existent.
One thing you would notice if you study history, that non-capitalistic societies generally had a different sense of time, that is they were in a habit of perceiving the present as a longer period of time. This is what today is known as long-term thinking (see Long Now Foundation, for instance, in wikipedia).
What it means is that to you short present was not +/- 2 weeks and long present +/- 2 years, but something along the lines of +/- 100 years and +/-1000 years. That means that people had a different perspective on the decisions they were making, since it was common for them to consider consequences of their actions for a longer period. They do something and have to understand what will be with what they do or how will that affect life in, say, 500 years.
Obviously in the capitalist world analysis on such large periods of time seems unreasonably and even crazy.
Long term thinking affects all parts of life. Including technology.
If you look at how, say, buildings are built today and how they were built a century ago, you would see that the expenses were not more back then, but the technology was more long-term. So building a house that would stand 500 years is not necessarily a matter of more expensive materials, it is a matter of long term thinking.
My wife is an architect and she tells me a lot about those things. If you have a friend who is good architect, talk to him. And he would tell you that a lot of modern buildings are build, basically, in a short-term fashion. A lot of them are not expected to stand there forever. In fact, building companies would prefer to build so that their services are always required.
Same, for instance, with laptops. I don't know if you know this, but most sensitive parts of a modern laptop are usually placed in such a way that if you spill tea on your keyboard you are guaranteed to kill your laptop. And will have to buy another. This is capitalism and short-term thinking for you.
2. Companies and long-term.
Same with large companies. I am lucky enough to observe this, being part of a large international company and having the opportunity to know some of the planning from the highest bosses.
What these large companies call "long-term" is 2 years max. They cannot plan more than 2 years because the capitalist market cannot be predicted so far.
Thus, all their decisions are short-term, because for a long-term thinker 2 years is not a serious period. But decisions which these companies make have consequences far beyond 20 years. It's just not many people care to follow those.
So no, companies unfortunately do not care for any serious long-term thinking.
As for their survival, you wouldn't believe it, but for a Big Business company survival is not a serious problem, since their large capitals allow them to very well survive even through very difficult times with no special planning.
3. People get what they want.
In a free market - yes. Capitalist market is NOT a free market, my friend. Capitalist market is ruled by large companies (and if you read up, you will find out that any capitalistic market eventually gets big companies, this is a matter of economical laws, I did not make that up). So when I am speaking about choices, I am not speaking about being able to fly. In fact, this comment really misses the point - scarcity and product choices which I am speaking about have nothing in common in this context.
4.
QuoteTV shows that kind of stuff because that's what most people want. If it weren't, a TV channel could make lots of money by offering what people really want and thus selling lots of ads at the expense of the other TV-owner's stupidity.
First of all, you very often mention stupidity. Manipulating peoples' behaviour has nothing to do with everybody's level of intelligence. It is possible simply because people are social and exchanging information and responding to it is part of our nature. That means that the situation around us can influence us even without us knowing it. There are many examples to show this, the more obvious being how different cultures have different thinking patterns and even different moral codes - what is considered normal for them is not considered normal for us.
Of course, in exchange we influence society.
Second, you obviously do not know how TV funding works. No offence meant, but it has almost nothing to do whether TV shows are what people want and sometimes it is not even a matter of whether a lot of people watch it.
Also, my former argument stands - if people have no choice what to watch they would tend to watch what is there, not being offered an alternative. In the Internet age alternatives are there and we face a more decentralized system.
Additionally, the methods of measuring the popularity of shows are deeply flawed and producers have a very distorted understanding of what shows people actually like.
Quote from: "uncloned"Quote
But Louigi: TV shows that kind of stuff because that's what most people want. If it weren't, a TV channel could make lots of money by offering what people really want and thus selling lots of ads at the expense of the other TV-owner's stupidity.
No, that's not entirely true
there is another rather cold calculation you are forgetting about:
how much money is the show producers / sponsors are willing to pay to produce the show versus the amount of return expected. Day time TV does not have the highest number of people watching.
soap operas are exceeding cheap to make compared to say.... Star Trek NG with all of the computer graphics and special effects. (And STNG is really just a sci fi based soap opera)
Have you not noticed that prime time TV is much better in quality than day time TV? If you haven't - get sick and stay home and watch day time TV for a couple or three weeks (happened to me) - at least here in the states day time TV is abysmal unless you are a toddler.
And that is saying a lot since TV, in general, is pretty bad. TV doesn't at all compare to theater movies - even the made for TV movies are usually not as good. Every once in a while a stand out occurs usually because the actors or plot is especially good - not because the camera work is. And then the stand outs get a larger investment roughly in proportion to the size of the audience.
So, no, demand is not met unless it can be done at a profit. If it can't be done at a profit it won't happen from the private sector. The internet is the exception here - the pre-bubble bursting internet developed a new business model - give it away free - and it was indeed new. The people who invested made their money back though.... by doing IPOs IF they had a business model and product that investors thought would succeed - such as Google.
The fact of the matter with few exceptions (think of the economy beyond the internet) a capitalistic society is not going to have serious business people giving away much of anything for free unless there is a perceived way to a profit. Its just a fact. Demand is only part of the story.
you need demand, investors, and a business model that yields a profit.
like the fire triangle if one is missing it won't happen.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. It seems to me prime time is better because more people watch it. One could argue that it's the other way round, but in that case, producers would just improve the quality of the rest of their shows so more people would watch everything. Prime time is prime time because more people are at home, watching TV.
Competition for prime time is greater: the best sponsors are there. So, the quality is naturally better.
Doesn't TV follow the model you describe? Channels give programs away for free and earn money by charging for publicity?
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"PPH, a lot of what you say is reasonable commentary, I just have to provide some general info on what I mean and some things I did not mention. I would also like to comment several of your statements on which I have a difference of opinion and sometimes even first hand information.
1. Tradeoffs.
This is a very complex question. I would just briefly outline it, so you can see that in my analysis tradeoffs are part of the equation.
The problem lies in the general philosophy of society. If you go a century back, you would find out that people had a very different line of thinking. Something, that is considered normal and common today back in the days was rare and even non-existent.
One thing you would notice if you study history, that non-capitalistic societies generally had a different sense of time, that is they were in a habit of perceiving the present as a longer period of time. This is what today is known as long-term thinking (see Long Now Foundation, for instance, in wikipedia).
What it means is that to you short present was not +/- 2 weeks and long present +/- 2 years, but something along the lines of +/- 100 years and +/-1000 years. That means that people had a different perspective on the decisions they were making, since it was common for them to consider consequences of their actions for a longer period. They do something and have to understand what will be with what they do or how will that affect life in, say, 500 years.
Obviously in the capitalist world analysis on such large periods of time seems unreasonably and even crazy.
Long term thinking affects all parts of life. Including technology.
If you look at how, say, buildings are built today and how they were built a century ago, you would see that the expenses were not more back then, but the technology was more long-term. So building a house that would stand 500 years is not necessarily a matter of more expensive materials, it is a matter of long term thinking.
My wife is an architect and she tells me a lot about those things. If you have a friend who is good architect, talk to him. And he would tell you that a lot of modern buildings are build, basically, in a short-term fashion. A lot of them are not expected to stand there forever. In fact, building companies would prefer to build so that their services are always required.
Same, for instance, with laptops. I don't know if you know this, but most sensitive parts of a modern laptop are usually placed in such a way that if you spill tea on your keyboard you are guaranteed to kill your laptop. And will have to buy another. This is capitalism and short-term thinking for you.
I think we can basically agree that producers guide the production process by demand, but for some exceptions, which I will explain below. So, in general, they produce what people ask for. If the general philosophy of society is short term, then producers produce short term stuff. So, if there actually is a problem, it's not that they produce according to demand instead of according to what is good for society. They actually have no choice: they must attend demand. The problem then is that people demand short term stuff.
Also: would people buy a laptop designed to survive 20 years when they can buy a cheaper one that lasts 3 years? I know the answers depends on how cheaper, etc. But it's not that simple.
Long term thinking and short term thinking affects, indeed, many things. The tradeoffs between long term and short term are also taken account by the market. In a free market, such choices manifest themselves on interest rate. Of course, in reality, that happens only to a certain degree, because governments control the money supply and generally keep interest rates artificially low. The funny thing is that low interest rates send the signal that people are thinking long term, not short term. So, actually, government intervention should be causing the opposite thing from what you say is happening (of course, that doesn't last forever; the current crisis resulted from this kind of manipulation of the money supply).
Also, the argument "X manufacturing companies prefer to build X that break up fast so that their services are always required" doesn't hold. Some companies build long term stuff for people who are willing to pay for it. If a company deliberately produces bad stuff, it can't survive.
Now, there are exceptions. Suppose, for example, that government subsidizes laptop manufacturing companies. In that case, companies can get away with making bad stuff because they still profit from the money government gives them (and takes by force from the people). Like you say, we don't live in a free market. But that is the king of thing where you should look for answers when you think something is wrong. Patents are a perfect example of that: patents are government granted monopolies.
Quote
2. Companies and long-term.
Same with large companies. I am lucky enough to observe this, being part of a large international company and having the opportunity to know some of the planning from the highest bosses.
What these large companies call "long-term" is 2 years max. They cannot plan more than 2 years because the capitalist market cannot be predicted so far.
Thus, all their decisions are short-term, because for a long-term thinker 2 years is not a serious period. But decisions which these companies make have consequences far beyond 20 years. It's just not many people care to follow those.
So no, companies unfortunately do not care for any serious long-term thinking.
As for their survival, you wouldn't believe it, but for a Big Business company survival is not a serious problem, since their large capitals allow them to very well survive even through very difficult times with no special planning.
You like to thing of an example and then extrapolate your conclusions to the whole universe. That doesn't work. Just because your company plans for 2 years ahead it doesn't mean all companies do. Also, the fact that they plan for two years ahead because it's not possible to plan for more doesn't mean they don't take decisions based on the long-term. Companies don't engage in, for example, capital consumption, because they know that's bad in the long term. Farmers, for example, don't produce as much as they could because that would ruin the soil and they would lose in the long term (except, of course, artificial incentives cause them to do it).
Big companies can survive through difficult times (especially if government takes money from the people to give it to them, like int he USA), but they can also get broke if they consistently fail for a sufficiently long time.
Quote
3. People get what they want.
In a free market - yes. Capitalist market is NOT a free market, my friend. Capitalist market is ruled by large companies (and if you read up, you will find out that any capitalistic market eventually gets big companies, this is a matter of economical laws, I did not make that up). So when I am speaking about choices, I am not speaking about being able to fly. In fact, this comment really misses the point - scarcity and product choices which I am speaking about have nothing in common in this context.
For me, capitalism makes "privately owned means of production". Free market and pure capitalism would be identical. Maybe you use another definition. In a free market (pure capitalism), the consumer rules. In a mixed economy, the consumer rules together with the government. Now, it is common for Big Government to be in concert with Big Business. This generates lots of problems, some of which may be the ones you are complaining about. But for that to happen, there must always be some kind of forcing on the consumers. This, indeed, happens: subsidies, prohibitions, competition regulations, control of the money supply, etc.
Quote
First of all, you very often mention stupidity. Manipulating peoples' behaviour has nothing to do with everybody's level of intelligence. It is possible simply because people are social and exchanging information and responding to it is part of our nature. That means that the situation around us can influence us even without us knowing it. There are many examples to show this, the more obvious being how different cultures have different thinking patterns and even different moral codes - what is considered normal for them is not considered normal for us.
Of course, in exchange we influence society.
True. You never argued against my argument that if people could be manipulated to such a degree, society would break down, and it hasn't.
Quote
Second, you obviously do not know how TV funding works. No offence meant, but it has almost nothing to do whether TV shows are what people want and sometimes it is not even a matter of whether a lot of people watch it.
No? Isn't TV based on ads? If not, enlighten me :D Also, I don't intend to get offended here. This is just a friendly discussion between friends. And I generally do not chose to take offense.
Quote
Also, my former argument stands - if people have no choice what to watch they would tend to watch what is there, not being offered an alternative. In the Internet age alternatives are there and we face a more decentralized system.
Additionally, the methods of measuring the popularity of shows are deeply flawed and producers have a very distorted understanding of what shows people actually like.
Or they can not watch TV. I almost don't. The methods for measuring rating may be flawed, but in the end, its the profits that really indicate whether the company is working well or is not.
Just one more thing: there is no economic law that says that in a capitalist system big companies get bigger and bigger. I read a lot about economics. You say that if I read up I will realize that. Well, just this year I've read half a dozen books en economics. Studying economics is one of my main hobbies nowadays.
Well, I think we pretty much defined our differences, beyond which it is difficult to discuss anything - basically, we just view things differently.
QuoteThe problem then is that people demand short term stuff.
I cannot agree. When I am buying a laptop, I want it to work for years and years, not fail in 24 months.
QuoteAlso: would people buy a laptop designed to survive 20 years when they can buy a cheaper one that lasts 3 years? I know the answers depends on how cheaper, etc. But it's not that simple.
You are assuming, as with the house example, that a laptop that would work longer is much more expensive to produce. But I challenge that. I do not believe that much more investment is needed to put sensitive parts in more secure places, it is a matter of desire from the manufacturer. Older computers are generally more reliable as they were not aimed at mass market.
QuoteAlso, the argument "X manufacturing companies prefer to build X that break up fast so that their services are always required" doesn't hold. Some companies build long term stuff for people who are willing to pay for it. If a company deliberately produces bad stuff, it can't survive.
I do not understand why it doesn't hold. Fist of all, it is true - this is something I know as a fact, at least this is true for ASUS laptops. This is a deliberate design scheme aimed at making more short-term profit. It is not considered illegal.
Special orders for companies to build long-term stuff - never heard about it. Obviously not for a common person.
Third, you are often mentioning as an important argument that if a company produces deliberately bad stuff, it won't survive. But short-term is not necessarily bad. It is just short-term. If you spill tea on your laptop, technically it is your fault, the laptop as a computer is working fine. Besides, marketing never focuses your attention on the short-termness of things. And sometimes short-termness would manifest it in plans of the company to release and promote a new product, while there is no actually reason to do that since the old product is quite fine and can be used for decades. Like with software. And instead of updating and fixing the existing software, they leave all the old bugs unfixed and instead put out a new product, with a new learning curve and new bugs, some of which will never be fixed.
QuoteYou like to thing of an example and then extrapolate your conclusions to the whole universe. That doesn't work. Just because your company plans for 2 years ahead it doesn't mean all companies do. Also, the fact that they plan for two years ahead because it's not possible to plan for more doesn't mean they don't take decisions based on the long-term.
Company I am working in closely works with other major companies and we have a lot of info on lots of huge companies in the IT and devices departments. We know their planning because it directly affects our work.
And any seemingly long-term thinking of companies in one field usually is balanced off with extreme short-thinking on the other. If profit depends on exploiting our planet's resources, the company will not be thinking long-term here. Of course, they will plan like 10 years ahead, but in case of planet resources proper long-term period is at least 100 years - at the very least.
From what I've seen - business is an activity the goal of which is profit. And any seemingly long-term actions from a company are there only to increase it's own profit which in most cases creates short-term strategy in some other field the company is in.
I underline - 10 years is not long-term, long-term is at least 100 years.
QuoteBig companies can survive through difficult times (especially if government takes money from the people to give it to them, like int he USA), but they can also get broke if they consistently fail for a sufficiently long time.
This is a general statement that is true for any enterprise, yes.
The TV thing. The cost of ads depends on prime time. Prime time is a time when people are more likely to watch TV. At that point - believe it or not - the amount of watcher does NOT really depend on what kind of material is shown. People watch ANYWAY. They put TV in the background, they go clicking around the channels - even if it's complete crap, during prime time millions of people tune in. There are a lot of reasons why this happens.
The reason why you are not watching TV today is because Internet is an alternative source of socializing and information. This is why TV today is loosing it's position. FYI, I in fact do not even own a TV ;)
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"
I cannot agree. When I am buying a laptop, I want it to work for years and years, not fail in 24 months.
You took my phrase out of context. This was hypothetical:
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If the general philosophy of society is short term, then producers produce short term stuff.
So, if there actually is a problem, it's not that they produce according to demand instead of according to what is good for society. They actually have no choice: they must attend demand. The problem then is that people demand short term stuff."
I never said people want laptops that don't last more than 2 years. It's quite obvious that, other things being equal, people will prefer the one that lasts more.
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You are assuming, as with the house example, that a laptop that would work longer is much more expensive to produce. But I challenge that. I do not believe that much more investment is needed to put sensitive parts in more secure places, it is a matter of desire from the manufacturer. Older computers are generally more reliable as they were not aimed at mass market.
Well, but then your opinion is based on belief rather than on fact. I don't claim I know how much it would cost to produce laptops that last more. But one thing is certain: if it were possible to make laptops that last more with negligible additional costs, companies would do it, because it would be a business opportunity.
Also, my personal experience with laptops is different from yours. By the way, my mother as a laptop that is at least seven years old and works perfectly. And I have one over which I spilt a glass of water and survived.
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I do not understand why it doesn't hold. Fist of all, it is true - this is something I know as a fact, at least this is true for ASUS laptops. This is a deliberate design scheme aimed at making more short-term profit. It is not considered illegal.
It's not true for Toshiba laptops. And aren't ASUS laptops cheaper? Wouldn't that be an example of my point? How do you know it's a deliberate design scheme? Can you read people's minds? And what about economic theory? If this is a deliberate scheme, the produce will have to change it or face bankruptcy at some point.
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Special orders for companies to build long-term stuff - never heard about it. Obviously not for a common person.
I can think of many things that last: TVs, fridges, cars, washing machines, desktop computers...
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Third, you are often mentioning as an important argument that if a company produces deliberately bad stuff, it won't survive. But short-term is not necessarily bad. It is just short-term.
I was referring to short term. You seem to consider it bad in your arguments. This is not really the point. My claim is as above: companies can't survive if they don't provide what the consumers want, unless special conditions exist, such as lack of competition and impossibility of competition to arise because of legal barriers.
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If you spill tea on your laptop, technically it is your fault, the laptop as a computer is working fine. Besides, marketing never focuses your attention on the short-termness of things. And sometimes short-termness would manifest it in plans of the company to release and promote a new product, while there is no actually reason to do that since the old product is quite fine and can be used for decades. Like with software. And instead of updating and fixing the existing software, they leave all the old bugs unfixed and instead put out a new product, with a new learning curve and new bugs, some of which will never be fixed.
You generalize and think know better than people who took the concrete decisions. Sometimes the state of a piece of software is such that it's better to throw it away and make a new one. I've seen it. If a company releases a new product, it's because it thinks people will buy it. Marketing can help, but it won't do any good if the new product is worse.
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Company I am working in closely works with other major companies and we have a lot of info on lots of huge companies in the IT and devices departments. We know their planning because it directly affects our work.
And any seemingly long-term thinking of companies in one field usually is balanced off with extreme short-thinking on the other. If profit depends on exploiting our planet's resources, the company will not be thinking long-term here. Of course, they will plan like 10 years ahead, but in case of planet resources proper long-term period is at least 100 years - at the very least.
From what I've seen - business is an activity the goal of which is profit. And any seemingly long-term actions from a company are there only to increase it's own profit which in most cases creates short-term strategy in some other field the company is in.
I underline - 10 years is not long-term, long-term is at least 100 years.
Long term and short term is relative and different for each case. For technological companies, it's probably shorter. For environmental considerations, 100 years might be long term indeed. But for other things, not. At any rate, all companies want to survive in the long term.
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This is a general statement that is true for any enterprise, yes.
The TV thing. The cost of ads depends on prime time. Prime time is a time when people are more likely to watch TV. At that point - believe it or not - the amount of watcher does NOT really depend on what kind of material is shown. People watch ANYWAY. They put TV in the background, they go clicking around the channels - even if it's complete crap, during prime time millions of people tune in. There are a lot of reasons why this happens.
This misses the point. The error here is considering the companies as if they were a unit. The fact is, even if everyone watches TV at prime time, they have to choose one TV channel. So, if there are three channels, say channel A, B and C, and only B has shows people likes, everyone will tune B. This is not sustainable in the long run for A and C, because they won't sell ads in this situation. So, channels must seek a way of attracting viewers, or else they will lose money.
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The reason why you are not watching TV today is because Internet is an alternative source of socializing and information. This is why TV today is loosing it's position. FYI, I in fact do not even own a TV ;)
Yeah. I guess I prefer to discuss with my Internet friends :D
Quote from: "PPH"Just one more thing: there is no economic law that says that in a capitalist system big companies get bigger and bigger. I read a lot about economics. You say that if I read up I will realize that. Well, just this year I've read half a dozen books en economics. Studying economics is one of my main hobbies nowadays.
The first multinational came from Netherlands when spice trade took place. They achieved more because of:
-Scale economies
-Lower transaction cost
The reasons why big companies want to be bigger through mergers and acquisitions are:
-Scale economies
-Lower transaction cost
-Wider customer base, as absorbed companies had their own customers
-More control over market
-Higher profits due to bigger market share
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"But I do think that it is possible to more or less form public opinion and public demand. At least to a certain extent. Of course you cannot market an absolutely useless product, a product can indeed be attractive and desirable at the moment, but useless in the long run.
You can say that if a person decides to buy a socially cool product, then he is getting what he wants, but in my opinion this is superficial argument.
There you are talking about "value".
In economy there is some debate about its meaning, as there are 2 concepts:
1.Exchange value: Price people are willing to pay. It is perceived value.
2.Usefulness value: Real price of assets. Usually visible during times of crisis.
Shoes are covers for your feet. Would you pay $1000 or $40 for a pair of shoes? You may say socially cool shoes would worth $1000. Would you buy shoes for $1000 in a time of crisis? If you were the owner of the store, you may not be able to sell those shoes. This is why during Christmas 2008, luxury article sales plunged 35%.
If you buy a $1000 pair of shoes and you intend to sell them, but crisis hit the door and people would only pay $40, where did all the money go? It vanished. $40 was the real value and the rest was just perception.
The difference between exchange value and uselfulness value is a toxic asset, or should we say "fake money" that exists only in your mind.
US economy is very fragile, because it was built on exchange value, so when "irrational exuberance" hits, perception changes too quickly, and money that never existed is just gone. This is why herd behavior became so important for economists, because US economy was built on ghost wealth created out of perceived value.
For macroeconomical purposes, the use of exchange value poses serious practical problems, because it reflects value that does not really exist.
Everyone, please do keep in mind that economic "laws" are highly questionable in terms of their relation to reality. A "science" which takes the current social system for granted and tries to formulate general "laws" based on a static timeless model has little relevance outside an interesting intellectual experiment. Most economics are not science and too often contradict reality whereas a science should base its theories on observation and empirical data. So citing what economics say or do not say is not a strong argument for me.
Microsoft Word and Office 'sales ban' begins
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8451459.stm
QuoteBut in December last year, a panel of three judges rejected its arguments and upheld the original decision of a Texas court that ruled that Microsoft had infringed a patent belonging to i4i.
Quote from: "Louigi Verona"So citing what economics say or do not say is not a strong argument for me.
Economics is more like a pseudoscience which pretends to be an exact science. Neoclassic economists make mistakes because their models use gaussian bells which acn only be used if variables are independent, but most are interdependent.
Hands up, whose source code looks like this (http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341d3df553ef0120a7bacd2b970b-pi)?
Google Apologizes to Chinese Authors
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/technology/companies/12google.html?ref=business
I must say in this case I cannot agree with Chinese authors. Scanning their books and distributing them is hardly an offense. An offense for a real author would be when noone would want to distribute his work. But not to those authors. Why did they write those books then? I guess their interest is not really literature.
Music file-sharer 'Oink' cleared of fraud
The Oink site was closed down in October 2007
A man who ran a music-sharing website with almost 200,000 members has been found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud at Teesside Crown Court.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tees/8461879.stm
Comment on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8478764.stm
The whole matter of copyright is about protecting a business by containing ideas. Dictatorships are containment of ideas too, this is what repression is about.
Normally, having such a bright kid who could hack such a system would be a great thing. But in the world of business it is a risk to get in trouble.
Unfortunately, those who try to make unhackeable stuff are challenging the very nature of humans. Tell humans sky is copyrighted so they are not allowed to fly, tell humans south pole is copyrighted, tell humans the moon is copyrighted and you can't land on it, tell humans that outer space is copyrighted, and you will find someone who will hack through...
The entire history of human invention and exploration is about hacking nature. Now it comes copyright to set artificial limits to people to protect the business of a company.
I sincerely think nature finds the way. It is unwise to challenge nature, for it is deemed to fail eventually.
So I ask... Are we entering an era when invention and exploration is forbidden because of copyrights?
What if Einstein was accused of copyright violation after "remixing" an enhanced formula copyrighted by Newton? Is copyright and IP the hi-tech version of modern repression?
Piracy letter campaign 'nets innocents'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8481790.stm
EU to assess piracy detection software
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8480699.stm
How to make money with such antipiracy scheme?
Make a song of your own and share it, it does not matter if it is crappy or not, add a license restriction to the shared file so no authority or company could play that song.
Make such file that is named after some material that seems like pirated material.
When the legal claim comes, argue that the file name is not a sign of piracy, so the one suing you should prove it actually contains pirated material. When they do so, you have two was to make money:
1.Sue the company for piracy and violation of license of use.
2.Sue the company for suing you.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/feb/23/opensource-intellectual-property