I have always used Apple computers, but have never had any of their other products (other than a laser printer years ago) and don't want them (either because of lack of need or because the price is too high). I hope there is always competition for Apple. Its margins are insane.
Another thing that has is part of the writing/blogging realm, which I will mention here, is what writers get for free and whether it has been disclosed.
If a writer is reviewing products, music, movies, books, etc., most likely the writer hasn't paid for those review copies. Some publications have a rule as to whether the writer can keep the review products or must send them back. So if you are a writer, you might end up with a lot of free stuff. Or your publication might. Or they might donate all the free stuff and disclose that.
For stuff like restaurant reviews, some reviewers disclose that they are coming to the restaurant and then restaurant provides free food. In other cases, the reviewer pays for his own meals and doesn't disclose that he is there planning to write a review, so he experiences what the average patron would experience.
Travel writing is a big grey area. Sometimes the writer's publication will pay, sometimes the writer will pay, and sometimes the entire trip is free, paid for by the airlines, hotels, restaurants, etc. hoping to get writers to come and cover them.
Most music reviewers and photographers get free tickets to the shows they attend.
As a writer who covered the Colorado tech scene, all the events I attended I got into for free. No one was paying my expenses, so if I had to pay for all the tech events I attended, I couldn't afford to do so. All of the events I attended were in Colorado, so it wasn't like I was getting big budget freebies -- I just didn't have to pay to get into a local conference or networking event. While attendees might pay $100, media would get in for free.
So many bloggers have gotten into events for free or have received free products or trips that the FTC started to crack down and more bloggers are disclosing what they have gotten for free from the companies they write about. If a blogger is being flown all-expenses-paid to an amusement park in Florida to write about her great week there, she is supposed to disclose that in the related blog posts.
People are going back and forth between two concepts:
Are you saying what you are saying because a company is paying you, or are you saying what you are saying because it is what you believe, and the company is paying you in support of what you believe (in the form of sponsorship, contracts, freebies, ads)?
In the most open circles, whatever the relationship, and whatever came first (the money or the opinions) all gets disclosed up front.
And even more so, I have seen writers say things like if a wife or partner has a relationship with the company the writer is writing about and so on.
And of course it is very standard for writers to say if they have stock in a company they are writing about. Many intentionally don't hold stock in companies they might write about so that their opinions can't be viewed as attempts to influence the price of those stocks.
Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
Suzanne, have you ever taken money from anyone, for your art or otherwise? If so, then by your own definition, you're "shilling" for them. Have you taken money from any organization? If so, then by your own definition, you're "shilling" for every member of that organization.
I used to freelance for national magazines (this was years ago), so if my work was published in them, it was a fair assumption that I got paid from them.
In the Internet years, I have written blogs (starting back in 1993-94). At that time I was working part-time for Apple and getting paid from them until they dropped OneNet and started to fund an alternative project, eWorld, instead.
I have done consulting projects for various companies, and I used to write for ColoradoBiz magazine, eMileHigh, and Courtney Pulitizer's CyberScene. Two of the three were paid gigs. I knew many members of the tech, VC, and entrepreneurial communities. They made a point of talking to me because I was media.
Most relevant for my comments in Techdirt have been my experiences in music. Actually most of my work for musicians has been pro bono precisely so I could say I was volunteering my support because I liked them rather than because they were paying me.
I started writing a music industry blog for Brands Plus Music. The founders of the company have gone on to other things, but I decided to keep writing about topics that interested me. It was my music manifesto, of sorts, because I was getting bored with most of what was coming out about the music industry. People kept saying the same things over and over again and I wanted to cover something on the fringes. Precisely because I knew a lot about the music industry but didn't care if I was paid from it, I felt free to give my honest opinions. I wasn't beholden to anyone and I wasn't trying to sell myself as a music consultant or as a speaker at conferences.
My last big topic series for the blog was on the gift economy, which is how I stumbled on the P2P Foundation. About that time the shareable movement was also picking up steam. And then came Occupy Wall Street. They were addressing economic issues that went far beyond the usual IP arguments.
Last year I became more aware of the huge amount of lobbying Google was doing, so that has shaped my opinions, too.
In comparison to the P2P Foundation and the shareable movement, Techdirt does strike me as very Google-centric. Topics that get discussed over and over here have much to do with issues very relevant to Google. But issues that might affect corporate ownership, the value or non-value of the stock market, sustainability, etc., not so much.
Whether or not Mike has a financial arrangement with Google (I assume he has received money or perks from the company over the years), I do see this as a forum that reflects Google's interests. Whether that is intentional or merely reflects the fact that Mike and Google are closely aligned on many issues, I don't know, but to point to other, more radical points of view, I routinely toss out the P2P Foundation. As I have said, I see the big tech companies moving toward consolidation of power much like big companies in the past have done.
Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
So you are suggesting that because I worked for AT&T for a time that I must be shilling for them? Honestly? I can't even begin to verbalize just how silly that sounds to me.
Actually that is totally standard for many writers. If they were working on a piece about AT&T they would mention at the start of the piece that they had formerly worked for AT&T.
... even if Mike is being paid to make specific google approved statements all that means is you're debating google's points and not Mike's.
That gets to the issue for me. I think Google's points aren't the best ones out there. I keep pointing people to the P2P Foundation (I have absolutely no connection to it, I just like it as a source of ideas) because there are much bigger issues than who is protesting copyright issues on YouTube. In other words, a lot of stuff that gets talked about here does revolve around Google, while there are vast economic issues that don't explored here and yet will influence the future of world economics. Whether Techdirt means to be Google-centric or not, it sort of is because of the topics that get discussed.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
I'm not sure I agree at all that this is 'Google's short list.' This is a list of anyone that's ever done business with Google in any way that talked about the case. Calling it 'Google's short list' seems to imply the people on the list are 'closer' to Google than those not on the list but that's not actually accurate.
I'd love to see a bigger list of any bloggers who have received money from Google in some fashion. Not advertising generated by a machine, but any blogger who has been paid for work done for Google, or even the sorts of things like getting free entertainment/dinners, free or discounted trips/services, etc. The same sorts of things DJs, many journalists, and many government workers are supposed to disclose. Google, on the one hand, said, "We can't give you names because there are so many of them," and then, on the other hand, has just said, "Here are the only people who fall within this set of guidelines."
I'm suspect there is a middle ground between those two extremes that Google isn't disclosing.
Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
Here's how I view all of this. Just as there has been a military-industrial complex, an "inside the Beltway" mentality, and a Wall Street elite, I see a big tech mentality solidifying. I'm not sure the Apples, Facebooks, Googles, etc. will willingly move out of the way or morph into something else if they are challenged by some business upstarts or a vast citizen awakening to decentralize business/ownership in the world.
I am skeptical of an anti-IP movement if it doesn't push for bigger changes as well. If it strikes me as "what's good for Google," then I suspect it will stop short once it threatens Google's (or another big company's) stock price. Among big tech companies, I like Google more than some of the rest of them. But I have been hearing too many justifications coming from Silicon Valley that sound a lot like the old justifications from other industries that were once in power. Once you have a lot of people dependent on a certain system and especially when you have a few people making huge amounts of money in that system, a certain inertia tends to set in.
Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
The fact that he did a study for the CIAA was public knowledge long before this court filing...
Yes, no disagreement there. I was just pointing out that being on Google's short list does make you more visible. You have gained an association with Google that other bloggers not on the list haven't been given. Whether your wanted that association or not doesn't change the fact that Google has given it to you.
Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
Mike has exactly the same "degree of separation" from Google as he does from Microsoft, the Dish Network, eBay, Sprint, or Yahoo!, all of whom are CCIA members. Yet Mike is not even accused of "shilling" for them.
I lean in the direction of asking bloggers to disclose all corporate connections, be they financial, personal, etc. So I would probably say that if you are contracting with the CCIA, you do have a relevant association with its members. In other words, I don't think there can be too much transparency.
If we want to extent the concept to say Mike is shilling for all the members of the CCIA, I'll go for that.
To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
There aren't that many names on the list. So those on the list do stand out as people Google feels the need to mention, distinct from the masses of tech bloggers in the world that it doesn't mention. So as far as degrees of separation go, one might assume that those on the list are at least one degree closer to Google than all of those not on the list.
If we start taking down the walls, perhaps the tech giants will be disrupted, too.
Peer-to-peer production and the coming of the commons | Red Pepper: "In the sphere of immaterial production, Facebook and Google are representative of forms in which individuals share their expressive output but do not collaborate with each other on common objects. Typically, such platforms will use business models that do not return the value to the users who have actually created it.
"Commons-based peer production, by contrast, is emerging as a proto-mode of production in which the value is created by productive publics or ‘produsers’ in shared innovation commons, whether they are of knowledge, code or design. It occurs wherever people can link up horizontally and without permission to create common value together. It has the most potential as a leverage to transform what is now a proto-mode of production into a real mode of production beneficial to workers and ‘commoners’. To achieve this, strategic and tactical breaks with capitalism are necessary, though not necessarily with market forms."
I'd like to see Apple knocked down because while I like its products, I think its profit margin is unnecessarily high and it wants too much control. But I'd also like to see Facebook, Google, etc., knocked down, too. (Of the three companies, Facebook is the one I view with the most suspicion.)
As I mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, I think big companies act like big companies no matter how revolutionary they might have been when they started. When growth and the stock market govern decisions, companies act differently than if their goals are not measured in those terms.
The system is currently working quite well for Apple. It is not only making a ton of money, it's rewarding shareholders along for the ride.
I think if you want big changes in how business is conducted here and elsewhere, you need to look beyond IP laws. Here's a relevant piece. Click on it to be directed to a further discussion.
Innovation: What happens when entrepreneurial people value a *meaningful and sustainable lifestyle* over money? - Quora: Michel Bauwens "I believe it is still generally the case that doing things outside the mainstream system comes at a cost, even as it is necessary, brings happiness and meaning etc .. Generally speaking, the peer production of value happens in the context of a system where value is extracted by shareholders and not returned to the peer producing value creators. They are two polarities for the solutions and both are occuring. One is that there is a 'inclusive/ethical capitalism' (which can also be a disguise for neoliberal and classic capitalist extraction) movement developing, around the concept of shared value, which is looking for ways that value can be more equitably shared. On the other hand, I believe that there is also a maturing and extension of open business models that are occuring from the peer value producers themselves."
Are these the folks who are going to chip in to keep their favorite musicians afloat?
Family Value: When Grown Kids Return Home - WSJ.com: "Three in 10 parents of adult children said that at least one of their children had returned home because of the economy, according to a Pew survey last December of about 2,000 adults. And almost two-thirds of 25- to 34-year-olds have friends or family members who have moved back home over the past few years because of economic conditions."
I'm not sure that big corporations like Google are necessarily what we should strive for and reward.
I have mentioned the P2P Foundation before as something I wish would get more attention in the Techdirt discussions. My general impression of Techdirt is that it is more pro-Google than it is an advocate of a more revolutionary approach to economic thinking. The envelope is pushed far enough to benefit Google, but not far enough to disrupt the corporate mode that Google is part of.
Here's a good article and it mentions the P2P Foundation. While it is about city government, I think it could also apply to corporations, too.
Shareable: 7 Ways To Reinvent Your City, Burning Man Style: "Michel Bauwens, the founder of the Peer to Peer Foundation, believes that the proper role of government in our emerging networked society is that of partner in social production. This means that in a myriad ways government helps citizens help themselves. This turns the existing model of government as a top-down service provider on its head. Instead, government works in a bottom up fashion to empower citizens to provide for themselves."
I'm not sure if you realize I didn't start the chair analogy. I was merely responding to it. Someone else compared chair makers to musicians.
I just pointed out that when the average citizen is broke, he/she doesn't support either musicians or chair makers. The idea that musicians and chair makers will find ways to sell their products assumes the world economy has enough money floating around that people will buy those things. I don't think we're headed that way. With global income inequality, there are the wealthy who can buy whatever they want and then there's everyone else using what funds they have to cover the necessities.
Actually, there are a lot of cultures where people don't have the money to buy chairs. They do without. They sit on the ground. If your kid is starving, are you going to buy a chair?
On the post: Samsung Routed In Apple Patent Fight; Told To Pay $1.05 Billion
I don't want to be limited to Apple products
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Shilling
If a writer is reviewing products, music, movies, books, etc., most likely the writer hasn't paid for those review copies. Some publications have a rule as to whether the writer can keep the review products or must send them back. So if you are a writer, you might end up with a lot of free stuff. Or your publication might. Or they might donate all the free stuff and disclose that.
For stuff like restaurant reviews, some reviewers disclose that they are coming to the restaurant and then restaurant provides free food. In other cases, the reviewer pays for his own meals and doesn't disclose that he is there planning to write a review, so he experiences what the average patron would experience.
Travel writing is a big grey area. Sometimes the writer's publication will pay, sometimes the writer will pay, and sometimes the entire trip is free, paid for by the airlines, hotels, restaurants, etc. hoping to get writers to come and cover them.
Most music reviewers and photographers get free tickets to the shows they attend.
As a writer who covered the Colorado tech scene, all the events I attended I got into for free. No one was paying my expenses, so if I had to pay for all the tech events I attended, I couldn't afford to do so. All of the events I attended were in Colorado, so it wasn't like I was getting big budget freebies -- I just didn't have to pay to get into a local conference or networking event. While attendees might pay $100, media would get in for free.
So many bloggers have gotten into events for free or have received free products or trips that the FTC started to crack down and more bloggers are disclosing what they have gotten for free from the companies they write about. If a blogger is being flown all-expenses-paid to an amusement park in Florida to write about her great week there, she is supposed to disclose that in the related blog posts.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Shilling
Are you saying what you are saying because a company is paying you, or are you saying what you are saying because it is what you believe, and the company is paying you in support of what you believe (in the form of sponsorship, contracts, freebies, ads)?
In the most open circles, whatever the relationship, and whatever came first (the money or the opinions) all gets disclosed up front.
And even more so, I have seen writers say things like if a wife or partner has a relationship with the company the writer is writing about and so on.
And of course it is very standard for writers to say if they have stock in a company they are writing about. Many intentionally don't hold stock in companies they might write about so that their opinions can't be viewed as attempts to influence the price of those stocks.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
I used to freelance for national magazines (this was years ago), so if my work was published in them, it was a fair assumption that I got paid from them.
In the Internet years, I have written blogs (starting back in 1993-94). At that time I was working part-time for Apple and getting paid from them until they dropped OneNet and started to fund an alternative project, eWorld, instead.
I have done consulting projects for various companies, and I used to write for ColoradoBiz magazine, eMileHigh, and Courtney Pulitizer's CyberScene. Two of the three were paid gigs. I knew many members of the tech, VC, and entrepreneurial communities. They made a point of talking to me because I was media.
Most relevant for my comments in Techdirt have been my experiences in music. Actually most of my work for musicians has been pro bono precisely so I could say I was volunteering my support because I liked them rather than because they were paying me.
I started writing a music industry blog for Brands Plus Music. The founders of the company have gone on to other things, but I decided to keep writing about topics that interested me. It was my music manifesto, of sorts, because I was getting bored with most of what was coming out about the music industry. People kept saying the same things over and over again and I wanted to cover something on the fringes. Precisely because I knew a lot about the music industry but didn't care if I was paid from it, I felt free to give my honest opinions. I wasn't beholden to anyone and I wasn't trying to sell myself as a music consultant or as a speaker at conferences.
My last big topic series for the blog was on the gift economy, which is how I stumbled on the P2P Foundation. About that time the shareable movement was also picking up steam. And then came Occupy Wall Street. They were addressing economic issues that went far beyond the usual IP arguments.
Last year I became more aware of the huge amount of lobbying Google was doing, so that has shaped my opinions, too.
In comparison to the P2P Foundation and the shareable movement, Techdirt does strike me as very Google-centric. Topics that get discussed over and over here have much to do with issues very relevant to Google. But issues that might affect corporate ownership, the value or non-value of the stock market, sustainability, etc., not so much.
Whether or not Mike has a financial arrangement with Google (I assume he has received money or perks from the company over the years), I do see this as a forum that reflects Google's interests. Whether that is intentional or merely reflects the fact that Mike and Google are closely aligned on many issues, I don't know, but to point to other, more radical points of view, I routinely toss out the P2P Foundation. As I have said, I see the big tech companies moving toward consolidation of power much like big companies in the past have done.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
Actually that is totally standard for many writers. If they were working on a piece about AT&T they would mention at the start of the piece that they had formerly worked for AT&T.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: Re: Paymaster throw masnick under bus
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: Paymaster throw masnick under bus
That gets to the issue for me. I think Google's points aren't the best ones out there. I keep pointing people to the P2P Foundation (I have absolutely no connection to it, I just like it as a source of ideas) because there are much bigger issues than who is protesting copyright issues on YouTube. In other words, a lot of stuff that gets talked about here does revolve around Google, while there are vast economic issues that don't explored here and yet will influence the future of world economics. Whether Techdirt means to be Google-centric or not, it sort of is because of the topics that get discussed.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
I'd love to see a bigger list of any bloggers who have received money from Google in some fashion. Not advertising generated by a machine, but any blogger who has been paid for work done for Google, or even the sorts of things like getting free entertainment/dinners, free or discounted trips/services, etc. The same sorts of things DJs, many journalists, and many government workers are supposed to disclose. Google, on the one hand, said, "We can't give you names because there are so many of them," and then, on the other hand, has just said, "Here are the only people who fall within this set of guidelines."
I'm suspect there is a middle ground between those two extremes that Google isn't disclosing.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
I am skeptical of an anti-IP movement if it doesn't push for bigger changes as well. If it strikes me as "what's good for Google," then I suspect it will stop short once it threatens Google's (or another big company's) stock price. Among big tech companies, I like Google more than some of the rest of them. But I have been hearing too many justifications coming from Silicon Valley that sound a lot like the old justifications from other industries that were once in power. Once you have a lot of people dependent on a certain system and especially when you have a few people making huge amounts of money in that system, a certain inertia tends to set in.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
Yes, no disagreement there. I was just pointing out that being on Google's short list does make you more visible. You have gained an association with Google that other bloggers not on the list haven't been given. Whether your wanted that association or not doesn't change the fact that Google has given it to you.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
Re: Re: To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
I lean in the direction of asking bloggers to disclose all corporate connections, be they financial, personal, etc. So I would probably say that if you are contracting with the CCIA, you do have a relevant association with its members. In other words, I don't think there can be too much transparency.
If we want to extent the concept to say Mike is shilling for all the members of the CCIA, I'll go for that.
On the post: Apparently I'm A Google Shill And I Didn't Even Know It
To be on Google's short list probably is noteworthy
On the post: Google Launches Patent Attack On Apple In A Disappointing First For The Company
Here's more to contemplate
Peer-to-peer production and the coming of the commons | Red Pepper: "In the sphere of immaterial production, Facebook and Google are representative of forms in which individuals share their expressive output but do not collaborate with each other on common objects. Typically, such platforms will use business models that do not return the value to the users who have actually created it.
"Commons-based peer production, by contrast, is emerging as a proto-mode of production in which the value is created by productive publics or ‘produsers’ in shared innovation commons, whether they are of knowledge, code or design. It occurs wherever people can link up horizontally and without permission to create common value together. It has the most potential as a leverage to transform what is now a proto-mode of production into a real mode of production beneficial to workers and ‘commoners’. To achieve this, strategic and tactical breaks with capitalism are necessary, though not necessarily with market forms."
On the post: Google Launches Patent Attack On Apple In A Disappointing First For The Company
Re: Its like defending yourself against a bully
As I mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, I think big companies act like big companies no matter how revolutionary they might have been when they started. When growth and the stock market govern decisions, companies act differently than if their goals are not measured in those terms.
On the post: Google Launches Patent Attack On Apple In A Disappointing First For The Company
Re: Re: Re: Big companies act like big companies
I think if you want big changes in how business is conducted here and elsewhere, you need to look beyond IP laws. Here's a relevant piece. Click on it to be directed to a further discussion.
Innovation: What happens when entrepreneurial people value a *meaningful and sustainable lifestyle* over money? - Quora: Michel Bauwens "I believe it is still generally the case that doing things outside the mainstream system comes at a cost, even as it is necessary, brings happiness and meaning etc .. Generally speaking, the peer production of value happens in the context of a system where value is extracted by shareholders and not returned to the peer producing value creators. They are two polarities for the solutions and both are occuring. One is that there is a 'inclusive/ethical capitalism' (which can also be a disguise for neoliberal and classic capitalist extraction) movement developing, around the concept of shared value, which is looking for ways that value can be more equitably shared. On the other hand, I believe that there is also a maturing and extension of open business models that are occuring from the peer value producers themselves."
On the post: Musician Chris Randall: Music Has No Monetary Value But The Connections It Forms Are Priceless
Re: The world economy
Family Value: When Grown Kids Return Home - WSJ.com: "Three in 10 parents of adult children said that at least one of their children had returned home because of the economy, according to a Pew survey last December of about 2,000 adults. And almost two-thirds of 25- to 34-year-olds have friends or family members who have moved back home over the past few years because of economic conditions."
On the post: Google Launches Patent Attack On Apple In A Disappointing First For The Company
Re: Re: Big companies act like big companies
I have mentioned the P2P Foundation before as something I wish would get more attention in the Techdirt discussions. My general impression of Techdirt is that it is more pro-Google than it is an advocate of a more revolutionary approach to economic thinking. The envelope is pushed far enough to benefit Google, but not far enough to disrupt the corporate mode that Google is part of.
Here's a good article and it mentions the P2P Foundation. While it is about city government, I think it could also apply to corporations, too.
Shareable: 7 Ways To Reinvent Your City, Burning Man Style: "Michel Bauwens, the founder of the Peer to Peer Foundation, believes that the proper role of government in our emerging networked society is that of partner in social production. This means that in a myriad ways government helps citizens help themselves. This turns the existing model of government as a top-down service provider on its head. Instead, government works in a bottom up fashion to empower citizens to provide for themselves."
On the post: Musician Chris Randall: Music Has No Monetary Value But The Connections It Forms Are Priceless
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The world economy
I just pointed out that when the average citizen is broke, he/she doesn't support either musicians or chair makers. The idea that musicians and chair makers will find ways to sell their products assumes the world economy has enough money floating around that people will buy those things. I don't think we're headed that way. With global income inequality, there are the wealthy who can buy whatever they want and then there's everyone else using what funds they have to cover the necessities.
On the post: Musician Chris Randall: Music Has No Monetary Value But The Connections It Forms Are Priceless
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The world economy
Actually, there are a lot of cultures where people don't have the money to buy chairs. They do without. They sit on the ground. If your kid is starving, are you going to buy a chair?
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