I think one concern is that if the superstars raise the most money, Kickstarter will abandon supporting/promoting the smaller projects. Why put in the effort when a few superstars can generate more money than 100s of little projects?
For whatever reason, YouTube is trying all sorts of business models. It tried funding content creators to get better shows to deliver to advertisers, but that hasn't produced much.
Now it is cutting deals with content providers like Sesame Street.
For whatever reason, YouTube wants to go beyond what it has been doing.
Any content provider that depends on advertising money is always at risk of that money going elsewhere. Maybe that's what concerns YouTube. If Kickstarter works for Hollywood stars, maybe YouTube can outdo Kickstarter.
I don't plan to subscribe to anything on YouTube, but I can see why a parent might pay $2 a month for a Sesame Street channel. Convenience. Huge library. Kid-proof station.
In this particular case it doesn't strike me as so far-fetched. But I was pondering how you might turn that into a Kickstarter model.
It would be interesting if a company like Sesame Street said to people, "If we don't raise X dollars (on Kickstarter or YouTube), we won't be able to preserve our old shows. So we need you to pitch in or everything is lost."
That's one way to involve people in already produced content. :-)
And I suppose that's why some people view famous people on Kickstarter with some skepticism. They're thinking, "Is it really true that if we don't fund this project for you, it won't get done? You really have no other resources?"
My take on what YouTube is doing is to ultimately unseat cable TV. If parents pay a monthly fee to have unlimited access to the Sesame Street library, that's one less reason for them to use a different content delivery system.
However, if Kickstarter is a good creative model and YouTube is looking to expand its business models, then why not pitch subscriptions the way some Kickstarter creatives pitch them? If they offer exclusive content that way for a fee, why not YouTube enabling the same thing?
I'm just pondering the concept of exclusive content for a fee. What works? What doesn't?
I personally don't care what YouTube does one way or another, but it's interesting to explore what motivates people to pay for exclusive content.
I realized, when I was shopping around for dental care, that I view it like auto repair. You sometimes get overcharged, or told you need something you don't, or the work that is done fails. If you are lucky, after listening to recommendations from friends and the community, and trial and error on your part, you find someone you trust who will tell you want you actually need and don't need and will charge you a reasonable rate.
It's not easy finding the right person to work on your car or on your body.
In order to comparison shop, a person has to take into account at least three variables, which makes shopping for health care more difficult than shopping for a dress.
1. The price.
2. The quality of care.
3. Do you actually need it?
I've been shopping online for dental care lately and have found relatively little helpful information.
Some websites post prices, but usually they are average prices (not what individual dentists charge).
Some dentists have lower prices than others, but the most recommended dentists seem to be the least in need of using competitive pricing. So you wonder if lower cost also means lower quality.
Finally, other than the basics, a lot of dental services are pitched like services and the websites tell you why you should get a procedure done. Trying to find unbiased info is hard. And, unfortunately, some dental services are trendy. They are popular now, but then in ten years from now, you find out whatever you were talked into having done in the past is no longer recommended.
I suppose ultimately I prefer to get info on how to avoid needing health care in the first place.
I keep pointing out that much of the surveillance is being done by private companies, not government. And if those companies will sell the info, then all government has to do is contract with them.
The Google Glass Wink Feature Is Real | TechCrunch: "The infrared sensor, on the other hand, is far more mysterious. Google hasn’t really spoken up about it much, though sources around the web tend to believe that the unidentified little sensor on the inner rim of the headset is indeed an infrared camera."
Now YouTube is at the initial stages of attempting to give you exactly what you've said you wanted - premium channels offered a la carte - but instead of focusing on the potential upside you pick it apart.
That appears to be exactly what they want to do. YouTube is going after the video-on-demand cable market.
Re: Re: Time for action on Google’s privacy policy
This is how to get around security issues. You create your own facilities and the public doesn't have access.
San Jose approves $82 million private airport terminal for Silicon Valley elite | The Verge: "Google's Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt need a place to store their private planes, and San Jose has answered the call. According to The San Jose Mercury News, the San Jose City Council has overwhelmingly approved a deal that would allow a private company, Signature Flight Support, to build a $82 million private airport complex at San Jose International Airport. The complex would house and service the jets of Silicon Valley corporate executives, predominately Google's leaders, whom the Mercury News says would control five out of a proposed seven hangars. In a 10-1 vote, the Council agreed to lease 29 acres of land on the west side of the airport to Signature for the next 50 years, over the objections of roughly two dozen nearby residents worried about noise pollution. Read more about the backstory here and at our source links below."
I think privatizing security and having private companies do all the monitoring is where we're headed.
The monitoring is happening. It isn't going away as long as private companies can shape laws and as long as they can make money by compiling files on people.
At some point, rather than arguing in public, government will just become customers of private companies and let them handle the surveillance. And then if you have private companies handling security, they will be responsible for heading off crime and terrorism. And then if you privatize all public places, the private companies can limit access to those facilities to people who have paid for the privilege. Private companies will create walled communities (both online and offline and only approved people will be able to get in). If you have money, you will be safe. If you don't, you're on your own.
I don't envision the scenario that you've painted (I don't expect the level of violence that you think there will be), but I do expect that the world will continue to separate out into the very rich and everyone else. And now with so much automation, the very rich don't really need most of the rest of the world as workers. They also don't need nations because multi-nationals are borderless. So the wealthy can pretty much do what they want because they don't really need the rest of the world to prop them up. They can live in a bubble and trade real estate, art, and other assets amongst themselves.
This article points out that from 2009 to 2011, the richest 7% of Americans increased their net worth by 28% while the bottom 93% lost 4%.
As income inequality increases, I think more people, out of necessity, will begin looking for ways to drop their cost of living. That means sharing more, spending less, etc. What happened in the past decades was that people were encouraged to maintain their cost of living through increased debt, which supports a system that gives more power to the lenders.
People are going to have to avoid that, even if it means living more frugally. This article talks more about that.
While making everything free and accessible underlies the goal of P2P, shareable, commons, and other similar cultures, Silicon Valley and the lifestyle that has gone along with it is very much one of great wealth.
Therefore it isn't all that surprising to see corporations there and those who run them adopt some of the same values as the wealthy from previous generations.
Once a company goes public and is accountable to Wall Street, I don't think you're likely to see it become a revolutionary force.
As I am pondering what private companies can do with all the monitoring they do, I can envision something like this.
Companies don't want mass murders on their property. But right now the discussions are about gun control, citizen protection, etc. People are talking about what government can do to beef up protection and security.
But let's say that big data starts to identify potential mass murders, terrorists, etc. And that info can be made available (via private security companies) to businesses that care to purchase it. So the businesses develop their own security systems that only let "approved" people get in. Think of it as a kind of doorman/bouncer who dictates who gets into the bar. Or a shopping club that only lets members in.
If you take government out of the picture, security doesn't go away. It just gets privatized and questionable people don't get in.
Imagine if airports all ran their own security, without the government involved. I suspect profiling would be used quite a bit and some people wouldn't pass the necessary tests.
As I said, private companies have far more data on people than government does these days and I imagine that if the politics of security and safety gets in the way, the job will just be handed over to private companies that aren't held accountable for civil liberties.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sometimes it's the citizens insisting government be more pro-active
And no, I am not "against government". I am not an anarchist. However, it is fair to say I am unimpressed with the current governmental structure pretty much top to bottom and don't see it improving any time soon.
But, I'm not sure what you are saying. That people can be difficult? Yes.
Look at some of the P2P experiments, like Wikipedia. People set them up, see what works, and then hopefully modify things as they go along when they run into problems.
I think it is impossible NOT to have government. The challenge is to keep working at the models to find something that works. And when you have groups that can't get along, they split into smaller groups that can get along. If you can offer an endless choice of government options, presumably everyone can find something that works for each of them.
It's kind of what happens with religion. You get sects that split off because people decide they want something different. And the sects spawn more sects. Some sects stay small; some grow huge.
... I realized it can't be stopped without hurting my own freedoms, for good or bad those things are here to stay, people will have to learn to live with it somehow.
That's the point, though. People are constantly being monitored now. Like I said, you can call it surveillance or you can call it marketing/big data, but the monitoring is going on.
There's a coming transition from an era when you might get recorded occasionally, to one where you will be recorded, everywhere, all the time. All that footage will live in the cloud, much of it publicly, and be searchable with image and face recognition software.
That's the issue. Corporations want us to record everything around us, tag everyone around us, share it with everyone else, etc. So people are being encouraged to run those recording devices non-stop and then upload what they have to public forums.
They want us to share our address books with them so they can keep track of everyone we know (and they may or may not spam our friends). I'm getting daily messages from Facebook using email addresses that I have used professionally, but are not linked to any Facebook accounts. People who have given Facebook their contact list may not know that Facebook is contacting me on their behalf.
Modern devices have been created to monitor us. Unless we quit using them, we will be monitored. Call it surveillance or call it marketing and data collection, but it is being done.
I really believe the line drawn between private surveillance and government surveillance will disappear before long and all data collection/monitoring will be handed over to private companies, who will then be given the go-ahead to predict people's behavior, hopefully to improve public safety as a result.
It's not that I trust private companies more than government (in fact I am concerned by the lack of oversight with private companies). But politically it's just easier to take the fight out of DC and give it to companies that are lobbying for the right to do the surveillance/monitoring/tagging anyway.
Companies already identify who is likely to be a credit risk. They already identify people's behavior enough to set insurance rates. They are determining who will buy what to give different people different prices for the same goods/services.
On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter
Re: Growing the pie vs. taking a slice
On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter
YouTube is trying everything
Now it is cutting deals with content providers like Sesame Street.
For whatever reason, YouTube wants to go beyond what it has been doing.
Any content provider that depends on advertising money is always at risk of that money going elsewhere. Maybe that's what concerns YouTube. If Kickstarter works for Hollywood stars, maybe YouTube can outdo Kickstarter.
On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How is it different?
In this particular case it doesn't strike me as so far-fetched. But I was pondering how you might turn that into a Kickstarter model.
On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter
Re: Re: Re: Re: How is it different?
That's one way to involve people in already produced content. :-)
And I suppose that's why some people view famous people on Kickstarter with some skepticism. They're thinking, "Is it really true that if we don't fund this project for you, it won't get done? You really have no other resources?"
On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter
Re: Re: Re: How is it different?
However, if Kickstarter is a good creative model and YouTube is looking to expand its business models, then why not pitch subscriptions the way some Kickstarter creatives pitch them? If they offer exclusive content that way for a fee, why not YouTube enabling the same thing?
I'm just pondering the concept of exclusive content for a fee. What works? What doesn't?
I personally don't care what YouTube does one way or another, but it's interesting to explore what motivates people to pay for exclusive content.
On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter
Re: Re: How is it different?
So if YouTube created a subscription model that worked like Kickstarter, then it would be successful?
On the post: There Is No Logic To The Argument That Zach Braff Shouldn't Use Kickstarter
How is it different?
How is "we'll give you special content for money" different on YouTube and Kickstarter?
On the post: New Data Exposes Scammy Hospital Pricing; Now Let's Crowdsource Some More
Re: At least three variables to compare
It's not easy finding the right person to work on your car or on your body.
On the post: New Data Exposes Scammy Hospital Pricing; Now Let's Crowdsource Some More
At least three variables to compare
1. The price.
2. The quality of care.
3. Do you actually need it?
I've been shopping online for dental care lately and have found relatively little helpful information.
Some websites post prices, but usually they are average prices (not what individual dentists charge).
Some dentists have lower prices than others, but the most recommended dentists seem to be the least in need of using competitive pricing. So you wonder if lower cost also means lower quality.
Finally, other than the basics, a lot of dental services are pitched like services and the websites tell you why you should get a procedure done. Trying to find unbiased info is hard. And, unfortunately, some dental services are trendy. They are popular now, but then in ten years from now, you find out whatever you were talked into having done in the past is no longer recommended.
I suppose ultimately I prefer to get info on how to avoid needing health care in the first place.
On the post: Moral Panic Over Google Glass: White House Petition Asks To Ban Them To Prevent 'Indecent' Public Surveillance
Gotta love this
The Google Glass Wink Feature Is Real | TechCrunch: "The infrared sensor, on the other hand, is far more mysterious. Google hasn’t really spoken up about it much, though sources around the web tend to believe that the unidentified little sensor on the inner rim of the headset is indeed an infrared camera."
On the post: YouTube Once Again Building A Paywall On Which Old Media Can Hang Itself
Re:
That appears to be exactly what they want to do. YouTube is going after the video-on-demand cable market.
YouTube, World's Largest Video Portal, to Charge Viewers for Select Channels | The Wrap Media
On the post: FBI Still Doesn't Think It Needs A Warrant To Read Your Email, Despite Court Ruling To The Contrary
Re: Re: Time for action on Google’s privacy policy
San Jose approves $82 million private airport terminal for Silicon Valley elite | The Verge: "Google's Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt need a place to store their private planes, and San Jose has answered the call. According to The San Jose Mercury News, the San Jose City Council has overwhelmingly approved a deal that would allow a private company, Signature Flight Support, to build a $82 million private airport complex at San Jose International Airport. The complex would house and service the jets of Silicon Valley corporate executives, predominately Google's leaders, whom the Mercury News says would control five out of a proposed seven hangars. In a 10-1 vote, the Council agreed to lease 29 acres of land on the west side of the airport to Signature for the next 50 years, over the objections of roughly two dozen nearby residents worried about noise pollution. Read more about the backstory here and at our source links below."
On the post: FBI Still Doesn't Think It Needs A Warrant To Read Your Email, Despite Court Ruling To The Contrary
Re: Time for action on Google’s privacy policy
The monitoring is happening. It isn't going away as long as private companies can shape laws and as long as they can make money by compiling files on people.
At some point, rather than arguing in public, government will just become customers of private companies and let them handle the surveillance. And then if you have private companies handling security, they will be responsible for heading off crime and terrorism. And then if you privatize all public places, the private companies can limit access to those facilities to people who have paid for the privilege. Private companies will create walled communities (both online and offline and only approved people will be able to get in). If you have money, you will be safe. If you don't, you're on your own.
Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You - ProPublica
On the post: A Terrifying Look Into The NSA's Ability To Capture And Analyze Pretty Much Every Communication
Re: Re: Re: Re: I can only say two words...
This article points out that from 2009 to 2011, the richest 7% of Americans increased their net worth by 28% while the bottom 93% lost 4%.
The Rich Are Getting Richer And Everyone Else Is Getting Hosed - Business Insider
As income inequality increases, I think more people, out of necessity, will begin looking for ways to drop their cost of living. That means sharing more, spending less, etc. What happened in the past decades was that people were encouraged to maintain their cost of living through increased debt, which supports a system that gives more power to the lenders.
People are going to have to avoid that, even if it means living more frugally. This article talks more about that.
Degrowth, Anti-Consumerism and Peak Consumption
On the post: EU Dings Google's Motorola Mobility Unit For Patent Abuse
Free culture versus wealth culture
Therefore it isn't all that surprising to see corporations there and those who run them adopt some of the same values as the wealthy from previous generations.
Once a company goes public and is accountable to Wall Street, I don't think you're likely to see it become a revolutionary force.
On the post: Moral Panic Over Google Glass: White House Petition Asks To Ban Them To Prevent 'Indecent' Public Surveillance
Re: Re: Re: People are wary
Companies don't want mass murders on their property. But right now the discussions are about gun control, citizen protection, etc. People are talking about what government can do to beef up protection and security.
But let's say that big data starts to identify potential mass murders, terrorists, etc. And that info can be made available (via private security companies) to businesses that care to purchase it. So the businesses develop their own security systems that only let "approved" people get in. Think of it as a kind of doorman/bouncer who dictates who gets into the bar. Or a shopping club that only lets members in.
If you take government out of the picture, security doesn't go away. It just gets privatized and questionable people don't get in.
Imagine if airports all ran their own security, without the government involved. I suspect profiling would be used quite a bit and some people wouldn't pass the necessary tests.
As I said, private companies have far more data on people than government does these days and I imagine that if the politics of security and safety gets in the way, the job will just be handed over to private companies that aren't held accountable for civil liberties.
On the post: If Everything Is A Threat, Then Nothing Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sometimes it's the citizens insisting government be more pro-active
But, I'm not sure what you are saying. That people can be difficult? Yes.
Look at some of the P2P experiments, like Wikipedia. People set them up, see what works, and then hopefully modify things as they go along when they run into problems.
I think it is impossible NOT to have government. The challenge is to keep working at the models to find something that works. And when you have groups that can't get along, they split into smaller groups that can get along. If you can offer an endless choice of government options, presumably everyone can find something that works for each of them.
It's kind of what happens with religion. You get sects that split off because people decide they want something different. And the sects spawn more sects. Some sects stay small; some grow huge.
On the post: Moral Panic Over Google Glass: White House Petition Asks To Ban Them To Prevent 'Indecent' Public Surveillance
Re:
That's the point, though. People are constantly being monitored now. Like I said, you can call it surveillance or you can call it marketing/big data, but the monitoring is going on.
On the post: Moral Panic Over Google Glass: White House Petition Asks To Ban Them To Prevent 'Indecent' Public Surveillance
Re: The bid deal
That's the issue. Corporations want us to record everything around us, tag everyone around us, share it with everyone else, etc. So people are being encouraged to run those recording devices non-stop and then upload what they have to public forums.
They want us to share our address books with them so they can keep track of everyone we know (and they may or may not spam our friends). I'm getting daily messages from Facebook using email addresses that I have used professionally, but are not linked to any Facebook accounts. People who have given Facebook their contact list may not know that Facebook is contacting me on their behalf.
Modern devices have been created to monitor us. Unless we quit using them, we will be monitored. Call it surveillance or call it marketing and data collection, but it is being done.
On the post: Moral Panic Over Google Glass: White House Petition Asks To Ban Them To Prevent 'Indecent' Public Surveillance
Re: Re: People are wary
It's not that I trust private companies more than government (in fact I am concerned by the lack of oversight with private companies). But politically it's just easier to take the fight out of DC and give it to companies that are lobbying for the right to do the surveillance/monitoring/tagging anyway.
Companies already identify who is likely to be a credit risk. They already identify people's behavior enough to set insurance rates. They are determining who will buy what to give different people different prices for the same goods/services.
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