Scarcity Is A Bad Thing, So Why Would You Want To Artificially Add Scarcity?
from the think-this-through dept
If there were no such thing as scarcity in the world, there wouldn't be a need for property rights, because there would be no borders to worry about. The entire reason why we worry about property and ownership and borders and allocation is because these things are scarce and we're concerned about the most efficient way to split up those scarce resources, without having too many arguments over who controls what scarce bit. If there were no scarcity, everyone could have whatever they wanted, and there would be no reason to worry about the rest. That's why I've never quite understood the rush to create artificial scarcity, as in the scarcity created by intellectual property laws.It's a situation where you have the opposite of scarcity. You have abundance, such that there need not be any argument over ownership, because everyone can have what they want... and suddenly people want to take away the good thing (abundance!) and replace it with limits and a situation that is worse for everyone. Why would you ever do that, unless you either don't understand economics or you dislike mankind and would prefer that the world have fewer resources and more arguments over ownership.
Apparently, some others feel the same way. Derek Reed points to an amusing quote in a post by Tycho over at Penny Arcade concerning Sony's Playstation Home:
"Chief among these bizarre maneuvers is the idea that, when manufacturing their flimsy dystopia, they actually ported the pernicious notion of scarcity from our world into their digital one. This is like having the ability to shape being from non-being at the subatomic level, and the first thing you decide to make is AIDS."While an extreme quote, he's making an important point. If you are creating a new world, where unfortunate and damaging resource limitations of other worlds wouldn't be necessary, why would you arbitrarily add those limitations back in? Why would you arbitrarily shrink the resource pool?
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The VIP Lounge
I can only imagine that someone at Sony thought by limiting the number of games and other areas that they would be trying to get this idea that these things were "premium" and therefore exclusive. Of course this doesn't work with pedestrian things like this and I doubt too many models are going to want to date you because you were the one able to get the bowling alley or game spot.....
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Re: The VIP Lounge
Now we pay to play person to person gaming (no dedicated servers) while the other options (PS3/PC) have dedicated servers that people use for free to allow a higher number of active players in a game.
I'm at a loss for explanation on that one.
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Re: Re: The VIP Lounge
because Microsoft created artificial scarcity (or necessity in this case) by GIMPING your device (the XBOX) and preventing you from making peer to peer connections over the public internet wihtout first authenticating through them. This is GIMPING cannot be done on the PC for example so even though Microsoft TRIED to charge PC gamers for XBOXLive accounts, they quickly discovered (what was obvious to many of us from the get go) that without the GIMP removing any other options, PC gamers were not paying (since XBOXLive offers little to no actual value in an open market). They have since removed this charge for PC gamers, but they can keep it for XBOX gamers, becuase they have removed any choice from your device (creating an artificial necessity, instead of any real value).
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Better odds
Why are things like XBL, second life, My Space, Facebook, and others so popular? There not exclusive, everyone has them, and anyone can join. Not sure what happened to PSN.
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Re: Better odds
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Re: Re: Better odds
"and they banned me for acquiring their games through other means."
XBL is their network and if you don't play by their terms of service than you will be kicked out. At least they didn't send the FBI after you for copyright infringement, or get them to try your ass for computer fraud.
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Re: Better odds
Your statement seems completely backwards since its XBOXLive that creates artificial scarcity, even artificial necessity (by gimping its device to force the exclusive use of its network for IP based gaming) then charges its consumers for the honor of connecting to one another while SONY on the other hand offers an unGIMPed device and a free online service. Sorry, you have this one completely wrong
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"in the tank"? Read deeper
While worldwide the Wii and XBox 360 are each outselling the PS3, the PS3 is doing very well and until recently was outselling the XBox. ( http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/NPD_2008_in_review )
Not bad for a system which is marketed at twice the cost of its competitor.
Plus, I wish my company's sales were so "in the tank" we were up 60% over last year. :p
With software sales, the real monymaker, up 150%.
http://www.thebitbag.com/2008/12/11/playstation-by-the-numbers-12112008/
NPD numbers via GamePro
http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/208337/november-2008-npd-sales-figures-everyone-wins/
http:// www.gamepro.com/forums/topic/3964799/official-na-npd-console-sales-to-date-for-2008/
Year to date 2008 via NPD
X360 PS3
January 2008 | 229,000 | 270,000 |
February 2008 | 254,000 | 280,000 |
March 2008 | 262,000 | 257,000 |
April 2008 | 188,000 | 187,100 |
May 2008 | 186,600 | 208,700 |
June 2008 | 219,000 | 405,500 |
July 2008 | 205,000 | 225,000 |
August 2008 | 195,200 | 185,400 |
September 2008 | 347,200 | 232,400 |
October 2008 | 371,000 | 190,000 |
November 2008 | 836,000 | 378,000 |
Total:
X360 = 3,293,000 Units
sony = 2,819,100 Units
Now, lets throw in the PS2 and PSP from http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/NPD_2008_in_review
If you combine PS3, PS2 and PSP sales, Sony is doing very well.
NPD 2008 console sales figures
Console Yearly sales (as of November)
Wii 8,001,000
Xbox 360 3,295,400
PlayStation 3 2,818,900
PlayStation 2 2,092,300
Nintendo DS 6,910,000
Sony PSP 2,810,000
Nintendo 14,910,000
Sony 7,720,000
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correction from editor
Nintendo 14,910,000
Sony 7,720,000 -- PS2 + PS3 + PSP
Sony 4,910,000 -- PS2 + PS3
MicroSoft 3,295,400
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Re: correction from editor
The Wii has always been making money off of every concole so the game sales don't matter as much and the 360 games are out selling the PS3's by almost 8 to 1, and the 360 is taking less of a hit even with the drop to $200.
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Re: Re: correction from editor
PS3 = 5.3
Wii = 5.5
Dunno where you got 1.something. This was from this past November.
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Re: correction from editor
Once you add that Nintendo makes money off of every console and game sold, while sony only makes money off of the games and you see why everyone is saying sony is doing so badly.
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Re: Re: correction from editor
Im a little confused is your argument that the success of Nintendos $150 handheld is a sign of the demise of Sonys $400 dollar console? Im not sure I see that? Plenty of people buy Hyundais, doesnt mean Ferrari is in trouble?
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Re: Re: Re: correction from editor
you claim Sony's gaming sales are excellent and to back it up you use misleading figures. In the real world people call you on doing things like that. you are combining a legacy system that is still popular with a two new systems that have failed to grab a sizable market portion and haven't made back the money spent to make+sell them and comparing it against a single set of a competitors product. You also neglect to include anywhere the actual profit from the gaming department and instead just list the sales. sadly if you included the net profit from all of sony's gaming divisions from the costs+sales of the PSP and PS3 it would be in the negative. microsoft and Nintendo are moth profitable right now they are making money with every sale they make, to quote pure sales is extremely misleading and inaccurate.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: correction from editor
This is a missunderstanding, I did not make that claim (I am a different poster). I have no idea what SONYs sales figures are and I make no pretense that I know what they should or need to be for SONY to remain in buisness? I will state though that I remember reading a year or so ago that Microsoft had yet to actually realize a profit on its XBOX program or infact its entire Home Entertainment division? Is that true . . . I dunno . . .can you tell from sales numbers . . . aparently not?
I would suggest since we are not privy to internal information about the goals, budgets and metrics of these corporate projects, we stop pretending we know who has failed and who has succeeded. I think one thing we can all agree on is that having all these players in the market, benefits consumers, so lets hope they all continue to do well enough to stay.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: correction from editor
currently both microsoft and nintendo make a profit on every console sold (though microsoft only recently hit that point). we know sony loses hundreds of dollars on each console it sells and that at the rate of game sales they have received it is unlikely to have turned profitable yet.
anything more than that and we don't know for sure.
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Re: "in the tank"? Read deeper
sony is losing a LOT of money on every console they sell ad they aren't selling enough software to make that lost money back.
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I think you understand it just fine?
I think you understand it just fine. Why be paid once for something, when you can be paid over and over and over and over again for it. Its not a complicated concept really? We exchange money for resources, if you can continually generate money without having to invest or create anything new (through artificial IP protection), then you can amass more of those scarce resources, with the cash you generate from selling artificial scarcity? Who wouldnt want to continue to be paid for work they had already completed?
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Re: I think you understand it just fine?
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Re:
The reason for your lack of understanding is because you
are completely wrong! Mike has consistently stated that musicians etc should be paid for their time - he merely advocates business models that don't place the emphasis on accumulating that money by trying to sell plastic disks.
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re:
you can still sell X after you make it, but those who helps pay for the making through a donation get their copy at no extra charge. so for video games it would look like this:
customer A wants a game to be made, he contacts game developer and game developer has a list of all game people want it to work on, each time they choose one game (the most popular choice usually) to make. when it is done they sell it but give it everyone who helped make it.
this way the devs get paid while coding from the people who pre-purchase, and then even if the sales really tank for some reason the devs already got paid and don't have to worry about piracy.
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Re: Re: Re:
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Re:
Mike thinks musicians, movie makers, etc should charge for their time. The problem is that people are not always willing to pay. Which leads musicians, movie makers, etc to want laws forcing people to pay. Which Mike (and I) strongly disagree with.
Let me put it this way, would you support legislation to force people to pay beggars and bums? Of course the reason most people don't pay beggars and bums is because they do not feel their services are worth paying for. Which is exactly the same reason most people don't pay musicians, movie makers, etc.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Are you talking about content publishers that believe they should be paid over and over for the same work? I must admit, from thier point of view, work IS for suckers?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Why is it that people who don't know what they're talking about keep setting up straw man arguments to knock down?
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Re: Re:
I see you're trolling for musicians again...
Please let's not compare musicians to beggers and bums.
It's not even logical.
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Re:
I think they can charge for thier time, the issue arises when destinct means are used to create artificial scarcity in products and therefor artificial value in the creators time. What is thier time really worth, without government protections? How come you dont have to pay your barber continually for the haricut you gave him last month? Are you stealing from the barber, do you not value his time? Why is he not entitled to be paid over and over again for the creative work he placed on your head? The only reason is, becuase the government has not created artificial protections to allow him to do so.
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Re:
What about artists, inventors and musicians that are dead? what time are they being compensated for. What about those that collect for 50 or so years, die and then their children begin suing, or a corporation that bought the creative works. When I can't sing Happy Birthday in a restaurant who benefits there ? The artists? They're loooong dead. Time Warner benefits from that. I think it is not that any of us want to see IP laws gone altogether, but with the other side arguing so vehemently for MORE control and a more complete monopoly, we all have to provide a strong argument against that. Especially as the laws are bought and paid for by the true beneficiaries of such litigation. The **AA
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Re:
Sow my ONE of any of those who's paid on an hourly basis. Royalties per use != artists' time.
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Re:
Exactly. So charge for time.
Even though IP may be abundant because it is an idea or digital or whatever, the time it takes to create IP is scarce.
Right, so charge for that. But that's not what's being done. They're charging for the copy, which is not scarce.
So you are really paying for the time more than the IP.
No. You're not.
This is why even Mike charges for his time. What I don't understand is why he expects inventors, musicians, movie makers, etc to not charge for their time???
Actually, I *do* expect them to charge for their time.
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re:
A musician gives away his or her music and charges for a concert (his or her time). A musician gives away the music, but charges for the creation of new music (see how Jill Sobule's latest album was created).
There are many, many, many ways.
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Re: Re: Re:
We easily get a few a week.
One such method is charging people for your time before you make the product. I believe it was Jill Sobule who used this? People pay her, and when the amount hits a certain level, she then takes time and makes the cd then gives it away to everybody who donated. Or something like that. It is just one example (that I admitedly don't remember all the specifics to).
There are plenty of methods that have been covered here.
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Ahem
Many fruit and vegetables are either destroyed or bought by government and then destroyed, in order to keep agriculture around the world working, and not let prices slip into unprofitable range.
This applies even more for poorer countries, where the population is too poor to afford the food, so a significant portion is destroyed in order to not flood the market.
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How do you make a world believable
The simple answer is consistancy. People desire realistic consistancy in virtual worlds. That is not to say it has to be a mirror of the real world, this is not the case. However the world does need consistant rules and to move it too far from "reality" actually has a detrimental effect on the user . . . it ruins emersion and investment in the experience. I do not deny that there are also profit and property motives here as well, but the idea of consistancy is very real in virtual world design.
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Re: How do you make a world believable
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To make money? It worked pretty well for the De Beers diamond cartel.
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Re:
Until it stopped working, which is why they had to change business models. And they're making more money now with 40% of the market then they were when they controlled 80%.
For those that don't want to register for the NY Times:
Mr. Penny was among a group of Young Turks at De Beers who conducted a strategic review that helped persuade management that the company had to change. It stopped buying third-party diamonds, and focused instead on selling its own diamonds — though to only around 100 dealers who agreed to play by its rules. (It didn’t give up control entirely.) And it became a company that focused on increasing demand rather than controlling supply. Today, De Beers has about 40 percent of the diamond market — but it is far more profitable than under the old regime, when it controlled 80 percent of the market.
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Property have nothing to do with "managing" resources
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Re: Property have nothing to do with "managing" resources
You're proving Mike's point, toys are scarce, so kids get greedy. There are plenty of cultures which lack the concept of property rights because their society lack scarcity of basic necessities. Check out the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy to see what could happen when you introduce scarcity in such a culture.
Let me put it another way, I've never heard a kid or an adult claim that all the air in the room was his or hers. In fact, such a statement would be utterly absurd, unless the air was scarce for some reason.
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Yeah dude
You're talking about a pure communist society. We aren't wired that way (it'd be really cool if we were). Humans create artificial scarcity because we generally want to better our situations; make more money, have a bigger house, have cooler stuff and more of it. We tend to make rational decisions that favor our own self-interest. The people who create intellectual property would like to be paid. The people who package, promote and distribute it would like to be paid too. As much as possible.
Even writers like getting paid as much as possible, right? If somebody started copying your articles and plastering them on other sites with his or her own advertising, and search-optimized them even further so your traffic started disappearing, and making it less profitable for Techdirt to employ you, that would suck, right? Even though your intellectual property can be reproduced endlessly, it still isn't nice.
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Re: Yeah dude
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Re: Yeah dude
I will try to save Mike some trouble in replying to you.
People like you have addressed this again and again.
Mike has stated time and again, that he does NOT care if people copy his articles. There are some that already do. He encourages it actually. Most people who do copy, give credit. If somebody copies the content and does not give credit, then sooner or later (usually sooner these days) somebody will find out, and point it out. Then the person who was copying without giving credit gets bad rep from it. In the end, it can only drive more traffic to Techdirt than would have existed in the first place.
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Re: Re: Yeah dude
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Re: Re: Re: Yeah dude
Yes it is.
Thanks for adding some additional good points of thought as well.
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Re: Yeah dude
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Re: Yeah dude
The only real reason that communism DOESN'T work is because of scarcity.
Look at Star Trek. They have replicators, transporters, and light speed. The replicator makes physical things abundant. Freedom to move around makes time and space abundant. That's why the "communism" on Star Trek works. As long as there's scarcity, communism does not work. However, that's not a reason to create artificial scarcity where there is none.
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Re: Yeah dude
Communism is a single party based political system, I dont see where it applies at all? I think you mean the economic system Socialism?
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Re: Yeah dude
Communism is a single party based political system, I dont see where it applies at all? I think you mean the economic system Socialism?
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Re: Yeah dude
Mike's articles have been copied on other sites, and as long as said side give credit where credit is due, (especially via linking to the original article) there has not been an issue thus far.
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Re: Yeah dude
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Re: Yeah dude
He isn't talking about a communist (or socialist) system at all. Both of those systems rely on collective ownership of resources, which isn't what Mike's describing. Instead, he's describing a situation where a resource exists in abundance, so much so that everyone can have their own.
Humans create artificial scarcity because we generally want to better our situations; make more money, have a bigger house, have cooler stuff and more of it
Neither money nor housing are artificially scarce.
Even though your intellectual property can be reproduced endlessly, it still isn't nice.
Why not? This is the moralistic objection that people keep bringing up, but it doesn't make sense. The only reason it "isn't nice" is because it undermines what would otherwise be an unsustainable business model. If your business model fails, you choose another - morality doesn't enter into it.
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Re: Yeah dude
A bunch of others have already said this, but that's not true. Communism (or, really, socialism) is about collective ownership of resources. What we're talking about is not collective ownership at all, but individual ownership. If a resource is abundant, everyone can own their own piece. Quite different.
Humans create artificial scarcity because we generally want to better our situations; make more money, have a bigger house, have cooler stuff and more of it.
But artificial scarcity does exactly the opposite of that. It gives people less money and less stuff.
We tend to make rational decisions that favor our own self-interest. The people who create intellectual property would like to be paid. The people who package, promote and distribute it would like to be paid too. As much as possible.
There's a HUGE fallacy here. You're suggesting I said people who create IP can't get paid without artificial scarcity. That's simply untrue, as we've shown time and time again.
Even writers like getting paid as much as possible, right? If somebody started copying your articles and plastering them on other sites with his or her own advertising, and search-optimized them even further so your traffic started disappearing, and making it less profitable for Techdirt to employ you, that would suck, right? Even though your intellectual property can be reproduced endlessly, it still isn't nice.
We've said time and time again, that this is fine. We have no problem with it -- because we've set up a business model where that doesn't really matter to us. Since you're obviously new here, I'll cut and paste from here:
http://www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20070412/183135#c612
We have no problem with people taking our content and reposting it. It's funny how many people come here, like yourself, and assume you've found some "gotcha." You haven't. There already are about 10 sites that copy Techdirt, post for post. Some of them give us credit. Some of them don't. We don't go after any of them.
Here's why:
1. None of those sites get any traffic. By itself, they offer nothing special.
2. If anything, it doesn't take people long to read those sites and figure out that the content is really from Techdirt. Then they just come here to the original source. So, it tends to help drive more traffic to us. That's cool.
3. As soon as the people realize the other sites are simply copying us, it makes those sites look really, really bad. If you want to risk your reputation like that, go ahead, but it's a big risk.
4. A big part of the value of Techdirt is the community here. You can't just replicate that.
5. Another big part of the value of Techdirt is that we, the writers, engage in the comments. You absolutely cannot fake that on your own site.
So, really, what's the purpose of copying our content, other than maybe driving a little traffic our way?
So, if you really want to, I'd suggest it's pretty dumb, but go ahead.
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Re: Re: Yeah dude
With the proper business model, this is not true (a previous poster pointed out the De Beers example). You mention community as a point of difference for your content as opposed to copied content, which is viable. I probably should have referred to a hypothetical writer rather than a TechDirt writer, who doesn't have an established audience, and who really would be hurt by somebody jacking his content, to have a more easily generalizable example.
And I never said that people who create IP won't get paid without artificial scarcity - they're in a unique position to get paid more, and more easily, than anyone else if their goods are endlessly replicated (by offering add-ons like access, truly scarce physical products and momentos, concerts, etc). The people who won't get paid as much without being a lot more agile are the people who package, promote and distribute media in physical form; the people who pay the salaries of the RIAA and MPAA.
The point of my post is that those people are not mindlessly evil or totally ignorant; they have a reason for doing what they do, even if it is not viable in the long term and there are better ways to make money.
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Re: Re: Yeah dude
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like a blue ocean
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It doesn't necessarily apply here, but you bring up the general case.
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Please reconsider perpetuating this kind of crap...
But I have to take offense as this particular post! This post just smacks of sensationalism, especially when the quote you chose contains a technically incorrect statement, which by repeating you perpetuate.
AIDS is not a "thing" to be recreated at the sub-molecular level, AIDS is a condition, a Syndrome, caused by a thing called HIV. Being HIV positive is NOT having AIDS. HIV can lead to AIDS, but with today's treatment it is possible to live an entire life with HIV and never have AIDS.
I know this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the thrust of your post, but as you know we get our information from all sorts of different sources, so I urge you to please make sure that anything you perpetuate be as accurate as possible.
THANKS!
-Zac
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You've never been a programmer
I believe this principle applies to others, as well.
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Re: You've never been a programmer
I make no money from the people who use my programs except for my standard salary that I receive for showing up to work. I also devote time to open source projects so I can point to examples of my work if I ever need to find a new job*. I also used to write programs for friends and other individuals and I charged based on the complexity, anywhere from favors and lunch to a few hundred dollars (usually they wanted something simple or I would point out how long it will take to do in my free time) and then let them give it away or do whatever they want, but I have my name in the program and I would occasionally get other people who would like something.
my point in all this is that I make my self indispensable by marketing myself to potential employers as someone who can work with other peoples code and gets things done fast, efficiently, and well done. not all programmers are the lazy kind.
*most of my developments are in-house applications that few people outside the company see
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Why Won't Anybody Think Of The Children!
From a pragmatic standpoint, the folks at Sony are in the business of maximizing profit. Unless I don't understand the purpose of PlayStation Home (Is it an exercise in maximizing social harmony in a digital utopia?), it is likely that they are sticking with what works for now. As much as folks like us like to spitball new business models, the marketing folks at Sony are faced with the scarcity of time and engineering resources to make PSH work.
Why would they remove a proven economic source of revenue? More profits = more resources to do cool things. Less profits = your project gets shut down and your hard work goes out the window.
It is also likely that they haven't figured out a way to make money from the absence of scarce real estate in an online world. Hopefully they will start experimenting with different ways. In the meantime, why would you kill one of your golden geese?
If the concern is "damaging resource limitations", I would be curious to see what kind of damage do you could expect. In-world riots? Cybercrime? I would argue that the cost/benefit analysis for Sony would lean in favor of more revenues via traditional scarcity models. They have created *artificial* scarcity in digital real estate. They can always add more later. That is the beauty of digital resources.
D
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What is being made scarce
Which, you know, you'd already get if you read the linked article, but c'est la vie...
You have this virtual world, "Home", which (if you haven't seen it) is kind of like "Second Life" in that you create a person and move this person around in a virtual world, populated by other people. You can interact with other people by talking to them, using gestures (waving, dancing, etc.). You can even go to a bowling alley with a group of people, go to a lane, and start a game of bowling. Or, you can sit down at a chess board with someone and play chess. Or, you can walk up to an arcade game cabinet and play a video game.
Where the "scarcity" complaint comes in, is that there are a fixed number of lanes in the bowling alley; there are a fixed number of chess tables set up in the courtyard; there are a fixed number of arcade cabinets in the game room.
If, in real life, some friends and I go to the bowling alley, and all the lanes are in use, we have to wait our turn. That's the way the real, physical world works. But in the virtual world, one would kind of expect launching a "bowling alley application" and getting a new, virtual "instance" of a lane to play on. Being entirely digital, it doesn't cost anything extra to create this space on demand. However, Sony has instead implemented real-world scarcity by forcing you to wait for one of the limited number of lanes to open up.
Same deal with the chess boards. Or the arcade games. These make even less sense. I can use MSN Messenger to invite anyone to a chess game, and a new instance of "chess" is created for the two of us. Microsoft doesn't have some limited number of chess boards, forcing us to wait until one of those is free before we can play.
The arcade games, I've heard compared to browser games in their complexity and quality. So why make me wait in line to play a browser game? I can go to popcap.com and start playing a game immediately, no matter how many people are already playing ahead of me. There's no reason why someone in Home playing an arcade game should prevent me from playing the same game at the same time.
Exclusivity? Money? PlayStation Network is free, and Home is currently an "open beta", meaning absolutely anyone with a PlayStation and an internet connection can get it for no charge.
Realism? Or, as another poster put it, consistency [with the real world]? That's the whole point. There's such a thing as "too real". Shouldn't a virtual world, especially on a game console, be more about having "fun"? Why would you want to introduce problems and inconveniences of the real world?
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Re: What is being made scarce
One thing to add, is that number of lanes, pool tables etc is very small. I think I saw 4 pool tables in the arcade, this is for a service that thousands of people could use, unless they are launches a new world for every few people. And there are no queues, at least in a real bar you put some coins on the table edge to mark your turn.
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Re: Re: What is being made scarce
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Re: Re: Re: What is being made scarce
You may not realize how much the little irritations of life, like having to share things, actually enhance our existence by forcing us to interact with one another.
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Ideas are to my way of thinking an infinite resource limited only by one's imagination. The means (infinite, of course) are likewise readily at hand to act upon one's ideas and expend their labor to yield a useful product, be the product either tangible or intangible.
In the former a scarce tangible product results. In the latter a scarce tangible or intangible product results. Under either circumstance it seems to me that scarce goods are created nonetheless.
Quid pro quo being an ordinary human expectation, it is difficult to see a situation where the one who expends his/her labor should be denied the opportunity to profit from the expenditure of such labor.
I am neither an economist nor a philosopher, so perhaps my above musings are off the mark to varying degrees. But it does seem to me that even in a world where the absence of scarcity is the rule, by the labor of individuals scarce goods will nevertheless arise, be they "food" or the implementation of "ideas". Thus, even in the absence of scarcity I believe that the notion of "property" would nevertheless naturally arise.
I am not sure the above makes any sense, so any comments concerning where I may have missed the boat would be appreciated.
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Re:
You're basing this on an incorrect assumption - that not inflicting artificial scarcity denies the ability to profit from non-scarce goods. But that simply isn't true - it just makes business models based on artificial scarcity unfeasible.
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What
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Re: What
I had the same exact response to Home as the Penny Arcade people. Why the hell would I be willing to pay $0.99 for a digital chair that can be recreated indefinitely? Why would I spend $4.99 for a house that anyone can live in at the same time?
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I am sure I misunderstand to some extent, but I believe you produce some sort of business plans for companies that pay for your consulting services. Please, let's not have that information remain scarce - let's put it out, so other businesses can see the same information. They can them transform your work, adapt it to their own use. Society wins when information doesn't remain scarce.
If you find you can no longer make as much money offering consulting services, because your intellectual property no longer (artificially) remains a scarce good, then you can revise your business plan. You can sell T-shirts, or autographed album covers. After all, isn't it ridiculous for anyone, these days, to think their business model should rely on information that should be given away for free?
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Re:
Nice strawman. Misunderstanding both what we do and what we say in a SINGLE sentence.
We do not hoard any information. We do not sell any information. Everything we provide clients they are free to do whatever they want with.
We sell the ability to *create* new content -- which is a scarce good. We do not sell any infinite goods.
I am sure I misunderstand to some extent, but I believe you produce some sort of business plans for companies that pay for your consulting services.
No. You don't misunderstand to some extent, you misunderstand entirely. But why let that stop you.
We sell the ability to create insights from a variety of smart people, which companies are then free to do what they want with that insight. We do not resell any infinite good. We do not hoard any infinite good. We do not sell "consulting services."
Please, let's not have that information remain scarce
It's not scarce.
They can them transform your work, adapt it to their own use. Society wins when information doesn't remain scarce.
Yes, and that's exactly what's happening. Have you seen the content that we've produced showing up on sites from IBM, Dell, Intel, American Express, Dow Jones and many other sites? They're taking the content our community has created for them and made them open and available to everyone.
If you find you can no longer make as much money offering consulting services
We don't offer consulting services. Is reading comprehension THAT difficult?
because your intellectual property no longer (artificially) remains a scarce good
We don't sell intellectual property.
You can sell T-shirts, or autographed album covers. After all, isn't it ridiculous for anyone, these days, to think their business model should rely on information that should be given away for free?
Yes, it is ridiculous. That's why we don't do that.
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Re:
Well, at least you're admitting to being a hypocrite from the outset. It makes dismissing the rest of your post much easier.
Needless to say, simply because TechDirt may disagree with the current system of copyrights and patents does not mean that they can disregard the legal system. Clients can (and do) provide confidential and proprietary information which cannot be disclosed.
But in case you're interested, there are plenty of TechDirt's cases available for viewing here.
You can sell T-shirts, or autographed album covers. After all, isn't it ridiculous for anyone, these days, to think their business model should rely on information that should be given away for free?
Since TechDirt's business already relies on scarce resources (consulting and the creation of insight cases), I can only assume you don't actually understand TechDirt's business model and are simply trying (and failing) to come up with "gotcha".
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Scarcity and IP
The way the patent system is SUPPOSED to work (but in today's system seldom does) is that someone comes up with an idea. As an idea, it has no value (the Chinese are especially sensitive and in agreement with that argument), so it must be developed into a marketable concept. Often, this is time consuming and expensive (most of Edison's inventions fit that description), and therefore not worth doing if the result is theft by a wealthier entity.
So, what the IP laws are INTENDED to do is encourage this sort of development. Seldom works that way today, though it did with Bell and Edison (and Tesla and ....).
There are exceptions: Heddy Lamarr developed PCS technology because of a visceral hatred for the Nazis, and patenting was an afterthought, but many of our most important inventions would not have happened if it were not for the system as it formerly worked (and could work again, if we could get the politicians out of the corporate finance feed trough).
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Haiku
fewer and fewer topics
Your bills go unpaid
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scarcity is oftentimes abused
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Scarcity
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Scarcity
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scarity
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scarity
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