Entitlement? Spoiled Brats? Or Just Progress?
from the you-cannot-deny-what-technology-allows dept
A few people have pointed to Charlie Brooker's piece in which he suggests that people are so accustomed to "free" things online that they've become spoiled brats and feel "entitled" to things for free. This is hardly a new meme. We've been hearing it for over a decade in the debates over technology and how it disrupts business models by driving the price of things towards (or all the way to) free. But is it really entitlement? Or is it just a recognition of how progress works and the economics behind it?I don't think people are complaining because they feel entitled, so much as they recognize the power of technology to provide these sorts of things and recognize that what technology allows cannot and will not be undone. I don't think that's about being "spoiled." I think it's about recognizing progress. Is it "spoiled" to use a telephone or email to communicate? Is it "spoiled" to travel by a car or airplane? Or is it just the march of progress that enabled these things, and which people are quite happy about using because it makes their lives better?
If anything, it seems like the sense of "entitlement" and the feelings of being "spoiled" is coming from those who wish to hold back progress, and to keep things the way they were in the past, rather than embracing what the technology and progress have enabled.
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Filed Under: entitlement, innovation, progress
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Mine.
in my head,
which no one else can see.
And this thought,
safely kept,
belongs only to me.
;-P
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Louis CK describes this best
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I didn't pay when I had to borrow the record from a friend and make a cassette of it, I'm sure not going to pay to transfer a file across my home network.
If I really like it I might buy my own copy, but with the gimme gimme gimme attitude, not so much.
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I agree with Mike that the sense of entitlement definitely seems to come from the other side -- the ones who seem to feel they are entitled to freeze the world in a state that’s most comfortable for them.
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Re: Mine.
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Cursed low-born fools!
If we didn't get to bang your wife and eat half of your turnips, then we would not have the incentive to commission artisans to craft the kind of nice things that we won't let you have because your mud-addled, sub-human minds couldn't appreciate them.
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Though, now that I think about it, they tend to be people with psychological problems, where they go into a rage if they don't get their way or if you don't bend over backwards to kiss their ass. In Second Life, we call such people "Drama Queens".
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1. I like free stuff.
2. If I can't get it for free, cheap is fine.
3. If I can't get it cheap, I will pay more if I feel like I'm getting my money's worth from the product. Since that is a personal judgment, I cannot be faulted for it, it can only lead to me buying, or not buying.
If other consumers are like me, then it's not a sense of entitlement, as I am a legitimate consumer who won't engage in physical theft or IP infringment.What I am is frustrated that advances which should be making things effectively cheap, or even free aren't budging the prices, and sometimes even raises them (hardcover level prices for an e-book?). And when it comes to digital goods they're often burdened with licenses or DRM that hobble the advances the technology was intended to give. That's not giving me my money's worth.
I'm no "freetard", as some ACs bandy about. I'm just a guy who tries to be wise with his spending money, and doesn't get why the rapid advancements of the past decade are not being leveraged to influence my buying decisions, or are outright seen as bad.
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It's innovation I tells ya!
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In the good old days, if we wanted to watch a Saturday matinee, we'd go to the theater and buy tickets. Nowadays these good for nothing rats simply turn on their TVs for free!
I fear for our future, I really do.
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Considering that some ebooks are actually higher than paper books (which is weird unless someone can prove that ebooks actually cost more to create, ship, and store), shooting games possibly going the way of the MMO (there's a monthly subscription service starting later this year around the time Modern Warfare 3 releases), and the music industry basically paying the goverment to protect their "right" to charge and recharge customers for music whenever and wherever they can I'm really wondering who are the ones with a sense of entitlement.
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Entitlement
For instance, a book had to be typeset, printed, distributed, shipped, etc. Those were real costs associated with a real product.
Today, nearly all of those have been eliminated - I can publish an ebook without any typesetting, printing, shipping, etc. I can eliminate all middle men and even distribute it myself.
And yet... many of them legacy entitlement industries (publishing, music, movie, etc.) think that we should pay the same price for.... nothing.
Distrubution and advertisement used to be a huge part of success... but now with social media and instant downloads... there is no reason to add all of that extra cost into the final products.
Let's face it... I can go to a bar, pay a $5 cover charge and listen to music all night. And you want me to pay $2 for a single song? Seriously? Where's the value?
I don't mind paying for something worthwhile... I actually have bought music. But now... you tell me I can't play it in the office while I'm working because it's a public performance? Seriously?
Imagine if you got a bill from Ford, because you used your car to move a TV. Sorry sir, that's not what the car was licensed for... it's only for transporting yourself and up to 4 passengers.
Then, you get another bill because you used it to attach a trailer and move your stuff from your old house to a new house. Sorry sir, you're not licensed to use your vehicle in that manner. Think of U-Haul!
So much entitlement. So many restrictions.
It's amazing the human race has survived this long.
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I think this is an idea people like to latch onto, but it ignores the reality of what goes into publishing a book, or anything else for that matter.
Yes, physical products do have manufacturing costs that digital goods(? That doesn't seem right for digital. Expressions? Ideas?) do not have. But, when you consider the scale of publishing a book physically, where the publisher has thousands and thousands of copies made at once, the physical manufacturing cost of each book approaches very near zero.
Same with CDs. Pressing less than five hundred results in a per CD price around $3-$5. Pressing just one, besides the fact that no one offers that service, would result in a price that probably exceeds the average retail cost of a CD. Pressing ten thousand or more at once results in a price that approaches pennies.
So, the reality is that the cost of books or CDs in retail outlets never really had anything to do with manufacturing costs, because those have been diluted across a huge publishing/pressing run. Maybe the first half of the first dollar went to cover physical costs.
So from that perspective, I think it makes sense that digital books cost only a few dollars less than a physical copy.
Now personally, I think the fact that books in general cost around $20 is just gross. $7.99 for a Kurt Vonnegut novel would be fair, but $18.99? GTFOH. Even for physical copies.
Aside: E-Book price more than a hardcover? That's absolutely ridiculous. Was the hardcover the only physical form? Maybe the publisher just wanted to make it more sensible to buy the hardcover until the paperback version was released.
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stupid circular arguments
It has ALWAYS been a question of striking the right balance of ad-copy vs. fee for subscription. What's new about the internet? Higher-value ad opportunities that have better targeting! How is this BAD for publishers?
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You pay (presumably) for your phone and e-mail. You pay (dearly) to ride on an airplane and unless you're hitchhiking (analogous to borrowing DVD from library?) you're paying for the car ride too. It's about free, not about inhibiting emerging new technologies.
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"Nowadays, people, particularly children expect to get everything free on the internet whether it is films, TV , music. It is a dangerous culture. I don't know if you watch the news but big companies like MGM, Universal, HMV to name but a few have gone bankrupt or close to bankrupt. This situation will only get worse. In twenty years time people will complain there are no good films and TV shows being made anymore. The reason will be is that no one will invest in them as there will be no financial return. I appreciate you were trying to promote the show, but you should leave that up to us. Sharing these files even with adverts for the DVDs is totally illegal. We pay huge amounts of money for these licenses and when the public gets to view them for free, they are essentially stealing them "
I thanked them for actually explaining it this way rather than just jumping up and down and saying it's illegal. Well, I don't know if everybody wants everything for free. But I do know I used to watch that show for free on TV years ago but if I want to see it now, I have to pay for the DVD set (which I did!) and, given how much I like the show, I hope others do too.
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To them, you are a freetard, because you don't agree with their belief that you should be giving a significant part of your paycheck to them an a monthly bases for no work on their part. Hey, even artists here are called freetards by them...and it is the artist that is providing their livelihood. It doesn't matter to them that you are being entirely rational and they aren't.
I like your personal rules though...they are definitely true. The copyright maximalists here seem to think that number 3 doesn't exist in the equation, and that if you cannot buy it, you'll steal it. Which is funny, because they make it so difficult to legally purchase it that essentially they create the problem they wish to solve. But most of us follow 3 and don't buy their product (or obtain it through other means,) but since we aren't buying their product, they come to the illogical conclusion that we are obtaining it through other means because, hell, "millions of people should be buying the product (that we've made difficult to purchase and way to expensive, and it really wasn't a good product to begin with) and only a thousand people are, so that means that the other 900,000+ are stealing it" crap.
They overvalue their product, and then when we don't buy it and live up to their value, they think we stole it.
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1. I like free stuff.
2. If I can't get it for free, cheap is fine.
3. If I can't get it cheap, I will pay more if I feel like I'm getting my money's worth from the product. Since that is a personal judgment, I cannot be faulted for it, it can only lead to me buying, or not buying.
If other consumers are like me, then it's not a sense of entitlement, as I am a legitimate consumer who won't engage in physical theft or IP infringment.What I am is frustrated that advances which should be making things effectively cheap, or even free aren't budging the prices, and sometimes even raises them (hardcover level prices for an e-book?). And when it comes to digital goods they're often burdened with licenses or DRM that hobble the advances the technology was intended to give. That's not giving me my money's worth.
I'm no "freetard", as some ACs bandy about. I'm just a guy who tries to be wise with his spending money, and doesn't get why the rapid advancements of the past decade are not being leveraged to influence my buying decisions, or are outright seen as bad."
Maybe if the legitimate commerce was not being eroded by piracy, prices would come down. Maybe downward movement of prices would erode piracy. Maybe expansion of sites like Netflix and Hulu will chip away at both piracy and retail pricing. All of the issues are ripe for discussion. Piracy is under the microscope because it's illegal and legislation targeting is likely to pass and it appears to be deemed worrisome by freeloaders. Competition amongst legitimate sites will help to drive down prices, and coupled with reduced losses to infringement, pricing pressure will continue.
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It is if you expect to do or use those things for free. None of those things are free, except perhaps for those who use a free email service, but you still have to pay the ISP to get an internet connection in your home.
I think there's a huge difference between expecting everything for free, and being willing to pay for the progressive products you want to use that aren't free.
Free is good - great in fact. But if it isn't free, then why would you expect it for free? If what you want requires a fee, find a free alternative or pay the fee, don't expect to be able to use that paid service for free.
[If anything, it seems like the sense of "entitlement" and the feelings of being "spoiled" is coming from those who wish to hold back progress, and to keep things the way they were in the past, ]
So I can assume that you'll soon expect our telephone services, TV cable, rail and air transport (lets not forget the buses and subways and toll roads) all to be free as well?
I'm all for that, however I doubt it will happen in my lifetime :)
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capitalism
Our country, and most of civilization, is built on the principal that if you want something, you work to earn the means to obtain it. The collective effort of all the people working toward a personal goal enables our country to survive, prosper.
The only thing Sony or Google owe us is what we've page them for, in exchange for the hard work of all the people who contributed to the product or service.
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i disagree. distribution and promotion were offered at a significant markup in order to subsidize creation. distribution and promotion are now free. it's time to find subsidy elsewhere, or learn to live without it.
the problem is that no creative type wants to come out and say "i need x hundred/thousand/million dollars to be able to create in the manner to which i have become accustomed."
i would imagine that it's the "manner to which i have become accustomed" part that makes creatives uncomfortable. in the past this was cleverly diluted by middlemen. those middlemen are now obsolete.
maybe it's time to be honest about what all goes into publishing something.
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Regardless, the fact that actual materials are consumed in creating a physical object, and no such resoutrces are consumed in making a digital object, there SHOULD be a big difference in price, with digital being necessarily lower.
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Re: stupid circular arguments
It has ALWAYS been a question of striking the right balance of ad-copy vs. fee for subscription. What's new about the internet?
uh, the difference is that the internet is ON THE INTERNET!
the radio problem was different, it wasn't ON THE INTERNET!
the cassette recorder was different, it wasn't ON THE INTERNET!
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My reality is repeatedly kicking you in the balls. It's just as valid as yours.
And the word is 'inherent', you stupendously ignorant and worthless freetard.
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Thanks for proving my point...
Legitimate commerce is not being eroded by piracy, but by copyright maximalists and the industry that has a conflict of interest here.
If they didn't over-inflate the numbers of "losses" by piracy and looked at the real issue...that they aren't providing a product that people want for the price they are asking for it and in the format they are providing it, then there would be more effort to fix the problem. They automatically assume that since people aren't buying their product, they are stealing it...which has been shown, time and time again, to be untrue. Piracy is, as it always has been, a red herring. People who pirate videos would have done so regardless to whether other alternatives were available. And if someone doesn't buy what the industry is selling, then gosh darn it, they are stealing it (even though most consumers will go without.) Overvalue is what is driving this game, the industry overvalues their product, and then when the consumer doesn't meet their expectations, than the consumer "is a thief."
Expansion of Netflix won't happen, certainly not while the industry is busy pulling the rug out from under Netflix and complaining to Congress that Netflix needs to be treated differently than Blockbuster (only because Netflix isn't owned by a media giant, while Blockbuster is.) It is sad, because as a subscriber to Netflix, I'd love to see them expand...but the industry won't let them. Why do Netflix users have to wait a month before receiving the latest movies while Blockbuster doesn't? Oh yeah, because Netflix is a necessary evil...something the industry would love to see disappear, but the money is too good at the moment. Netflix is only a faux legitimate site in their eyes, it is tolerated at the moment, but once the industry figures out how to cut them out, they will.
Piracy is only under a microscope because it makes it easier for the industry to pass anti-consumer laws and scream chicken-little, that allows them to line their pockets quicker and keeps their antiquated business policies, until Congress eventually figures out what everyone else already knows...they are greedy bastards that will maintain their stranglehold as a gatekeeper at all cost, customer be damned.
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You've hit the nail on the head and quite squarely I might add! I'd like to add...
It is not entitlement on the behalf of the consumer - consumers have EXPECTATIONS that should be met to make them satisfied with their purchase in exchange for the amount of currency/time spent to acquire the product.
When I buy a song, or heaven forbid - one is given to me on Amazon, I EXPECT to be able to play that song anytime, anywhere, on any device I choose.
However, SOMEWHERE along the line a third party group who doesn't even make music and is not someone/something I EVER want to do business with has decided that I am NOT allowed to enjoy MY music anytime, anywhere, on any device I choose. In fact, they will even try to tell me it's not even mine in the first place!
Consumer + payment = ownership of product
{me} + (0.00 to infinity-1)= my ownership of said product
The equation doesn't even have a logical place for the 3rd party to become involved. The true sense of entitlement is in those who have decided that THEY must be paid for work someone else has performed that I have bought, regardless of the price I was able to obtain the item even if that price is zero.
When price=0, I am a freetard.
When price is beyond reasonable and I can still acquire the item for less elsewhere, I am a pirate.
The day I actually pay this unreasonable price and am happy with my purchase and exchange of money for goods and services, NEVER (infinity+1)!
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Re: Louis CK describes this best
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Sometimes free works given the circumstances and conditions. These circumstances and conditions are fairly prevalent on the internet.
So, why does free not work for you? There was a time in man's history when there was no currency, unbelievably it didn't kill off the species!
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Free? I don't think so.
It's not the internet's fault that some sites cannot figure out how to monetize their visitors without pissing them off.
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While these services may not reach a price of "free" in your lifetime, the progress of technology should be reducing the cost of these services TOWARDS zero/free, even if they never actually arrive at zero.
Now, please explain why I have to pay AGAIN for an album I bought 35 years ago because I want to listen to it on my mp3 player instead of a cassette player?
Please be brief and to the point, I'm trying to download MORE FREE music from Amazon and I don't really want to split my bandwidth if I can help it.
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regardless of the topic in your discussion he is not talking about free existence, he is talking about the transition of income from train and ship to car and plain. The car you pay for it once and it done the plain you buy a plain ticket, in both cases you are not paying the train or ship company. For the phone, you are no longer paying for someone to hand deliver a message for you, for email you are doing the same. instead you are paying for another service that includes that function.
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The day you pay the unreasonable price and are happy with it is the day it's not an unreasonable price. If you are happy with it then the value is worth the price.
I want to add something to your "not entitlement but expectations" comment.
If there are others out there offering the same thing for less, or more value for the same price, people start to expect it. For example, I can buy an 8G thumb drive for $7. I now expect thumb drives to be around that price for 8G and will not be buying the $14 or $36 ones. If your competition is offering the same for less, or more for the same, you can't fault your costumers for asking why.
And I'm not talking about the RIAA vs. piracy. I'm talking about the RIAA vs. things like jamendo. If they (and others) can do it, why can't the RIAA?
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Admit it, you don't read shit on this site. You're just here (possibly payed) to troll.
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if a 10 song CD costs 16 bucks (an easy round number for my example)
a digital copy of the 10 songs should cost 8 bucks,
If you want to restrict the downloaded media to a single device then I feel you should reduce the cost further, in my opinion this should be reduced to 1/4th the cost of the digital media because it is inconvenient and thats the value it is to me. so we are now at $2 for 10 DRM'd songs or $0.20 per song.
at these prices you will have billions paying for it so lets assume 1 billion people.
.20*1B=200M per song in income to divide between the label, the artist and advertising. If you have one of the rare artists that actually FILLS an album with actual art as opposed to the standard of coming up with one good song to play on the radio to drive awareness and 9 filler songs that belong on toilet paper, then thats 2 Billion for a cd.
Instead they sell it for $2 a song which is 20 per 10 song cd, and only sell 30k and complain because they only recieved @60k in sales, instead of the millions they planned on.
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Re: Mine.
You owe me for using my intellectual pooperty (it was a pretty crappy thought at the time)....
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Actually, with things like Skype, Hulu, and Youtube, I can see phone and TV services being free. This, of course, assumes that they don't get destroyed by people who insist on getting payed way more then they deserve.
As for travel, I would expect that the price would drop or at least the value of the trip to go up. Right now, I see neither.
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With your belief, it was a dick move for Weird Al to say "LA residents only" when he asked for people to come by and be extras in his music video.
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All because a certain business refuses to conduct itself like one.
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The claim that such a reality posses equal validity shows just how much of a fantasy your world, and the world of IP maximists, is.
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Though in the grand scheme of things, why try to rein in the genie when it's already out of the bottle? I would rather see digital goods treated to the fullest potential as easy to copy and in versatile standard formats, for the current prices.
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Re: Re: Louis CK describes this best
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No one is entitled to a govt imposed monopoly, to the extent that they exist, they should only exist to promote the progress and the overall public good, not because anyone is somehow entitled to them.
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Re: capitalism
Things do indeed cost money, but no merchant should believe that the costs will always remain the same. Sometimes technologies advance in such a way that turn old models and methods upside down, making labor more efficient or or prior products obsolete in terms of their usefulness. When that happens, and time goes by, expect consumers to wonder why they're paying the same prices for the same old things or even the same prices for the newer things after the technology has had time to mature.
In the end, smarter merchants will leverage the changes to offer cheaper and/or better things to draw consumers like me, and the merchants who fall behind the curve should either catch up, or get out of the way.
Now that's capitalism.
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Back on topic...
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Makes about as much sense as paying for the same song on Record, 8-Track, Tape, DAT Tape, CD, and MP3.....
Sometimes you just have to pay more to be slower.... Makes sense if you don't think about it
(and some people obviously are MUCH slower)
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Needless enough to say, I told her no more "munnies" today!
Admit it, consumers have been paying MUNNEY for a really long time because we were not paying attention. Maybe we the customer is finally paying attention to where our munnie goes....
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Re: capitalism
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Re: Re: capitalism
As with anything else, if you think the price is too high, don't buy it. But don't use price as justification for stealing a copy.
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(3 minute song costs 15c multi-format DRM free ebook ~$2)
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Re: Re: Re: capitalism
But they will use the fact that you didn't buy it to inform Congress that you are a dirty little pirate, because you didn't buy it, and they know it is worth an awful lot and they didn't get much for it, so obviously you stole it from them.
Price is not justification for infringing on anyone's copyright, and I find it difficult to believe that most people really think that it is. The entertainment industry would like to believe it is true, but that doesn't make it so.
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Re: Re: Re: capitalism
There's a post upstairs from ltlw0olf that explains it quite nicely.
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I recommend you look into getting one, you can kick him in the balls all you like and he won't kick you back.
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Not sure where you got the right to determine and define MY feelings. I have paid an unreasonable price(to me) for things in the past. On a very rare occasion, I was even happy I did so (it once actually saved my life). However, those things did NOT involve any type of media content.
There is simply no media content worth that much to me.
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The Exception that Proves the Rule
Hell, we've also been slowly perfecting two surefire mechanisms for systematically dismantling creative innovation: copyrights and patents. If the progress we're so desperate the foul up isn't completely original, who needs it?!?!? I'd race my last telegram expounding on this to my brothers unplumbed house in my horse buggy, but I haven't had a decent driver since the last one got fired for listening to an iLaude without being destitute; obviously just a pirate in plain clothing.
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I'm not arguing that there aren't already some free services - I'm saying if you use free stuff great, but don't expect to get non-freebies for free.
That shouldn't be that difficult to figure out. While progress does reduce the cost of technology over time, it is unlikely to be "free" for the entire world for a long time. It's free if you can afford a computer (which isn't free), it's free if you can afford the internet (which isn't free).
And right now, some technology isn't reliable. Frequently, we still lose our wireless connection...while I still have cable and phone. Someday, I suspect that TV and Telephone will all use internet (some do already), and there will be no such thing as land lines. Right now, that isn't available everywhere.
I have no problem using free stuff except...well I hate skype, Hulu and barely frequent YouTube for the bad quality. If I want to watch TV I watch...TV, not my computer, and not the tiny little screen on my son-in-laws smart phone. Who does that? (well him apparently)
I very much support "free stuff" - open source software is often my first choice, and the ones that are great always get my support via a donation. Cause, well those developers have to eat too.
I still have to say that expecting everything free is what I'd call entitlement issues...like the world owes it you because you want it. The answer to that now, as it has always been is No. Nobody owes you everything you want. ("you" being humanity in general, not anyone in particular).
Maybe someday in the very far future everything will be free, in which case nobody would need to work cause everything is free. I'd like to see that, but I'm pretty sure I won't. I wouldn't mind living in a world that used the old barter system...we still do for as many things as we can.
Travel costs won't drop until gas prices drop, and those won't drop until? Governments aren't so money hungry? Until people no longer work in the industry? Until cars no longer need gas?
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Re: Free? I don't think so.
They're free.
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Re: Re: Re: capitalism
Many here, such as myself, do exactly this. Unfortunately most of your crowd can't seem to comprehend this point of view.
No matter how many times I point out to you shills that I don't listen to retail music, the next time I lament another action by the recording industry that will further restrict the internet and/or culture and wish for the labels to finally blissfully fold, I still get you goofballs shooting back with gems like, "Yeah, you hate the labels, even though you love to steal their content!"
Every. Frigging. Time.
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Purely in example, the RIAA/MPAA likes to throw around numbers of jobs or revenue lost, but they aren't gone except for anyone but them. Those jobs (ie. people) and revenue have gone elsewhere. They haven't been disappeared or tossed down a rathole or stacked up like cordwood in an old shed somewhere.
It's up to those that are "losing" to run with the horses and get somewhere different instead of being dragged along behind them while trying to make them stop.
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Re: The Exception that Proves the Rule
Your brother is currently out on the road delivering ice.
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It's all about the market...
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Of Course you are 'spoild'
They just dont see it themselves, they will ALWAYS put it on something else or someone else.
"it's not our fault, it's the technology, it's the market, it's advertising, it's my parents".
If you can get them to ever admit it to themselves in the first place.
Mike you do come across as something who feels they are 'entitled', you whine about everything you do not agree with and you constantly uphold being able to basically take what you like that is the produce of someone else.
You seem like the type of person who as a small child when you saw another kid is a lolly, you cried loudly to Mom so you could get one, after all he had one so why not you.
You've carried that ideal right to your 'adult' life, where you see if that (songwriter, musician, movie maker) is gaining something that I am not gaining, I have a "RIGHT" to make my own gains off someone elses efforts.
That's spoild.
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Re: It's all about the market...
To only look at distribution is to ignore how you ended up with a product in the first place.
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I had to ask him to turn Bob to face another wall, since he'd freak me out when I went down there to do laundry. :)
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hopefully you and the rest of the baby boomers are dead before newspapers and broadcast television are extinct.
in the mean time, could you let the rest of us get on with our lives instead of keeping everything trapped in 1990?
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Back then there only were three channels.
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Re: Re: The Exception that Proves the Rule
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Re: Of Course you are 'spoild'
Now THAT is a first class description of the execs working for the MAFIAA. Congratulations.
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