it's not just the messengers or messages. what you're missing is that money -- not just pocket change, but money from large down to small business -- is electronic and transferred via the internet. and remember, the internet is not just links outside the country, but within as well.
and no, it's not just what happens when that atm can't spit out cash.
it's about credit not working which means cash only. it's about there not being enough physical cash reserves to survive nation-wide bank runs. it's about a lack of electronic credit causing stockpiles of cash forming in centralized areas which make looting and theft crazy lucrative.
it's about all this wealth suddenly moving to meat-space and the authorities not being able to do a thing about protecting it because they're too busy elsewhere.
and none of that even touches on foreign sentiment and engagement into the egyptian economy. the mere hint of wealth being suddenly lost like this will cause a ripple effect through all future investment not only in egypt, but similar "relatively stable" nations. think of it as kind of an investment bank run as everyone pulls their people and money out.
when your modern economy (which is really just about 1s and 0s getting transferred over the wire) gets completely shut down, bad shit happens.
trust me. it's not just about the lolcats and facebook status updates. this is bad, bad, bad.
the content of these posts isn't really my cup of tea, mind you, but i think think it's awesome how you have the buttons to engage the community and then basically report on the results.
i would wager it does a lot to incentivize intelligent/witty/interesting conversation in comments. all of which keep the engagement high.
i know for myself at least, this is the only site i visit regularly outside of rather than from within my rss reader specifically for the community.
For someone who likes music, music in and of itself is not hard work. What is hard work is making music to someone else's expectations other than your own.
[... snip ..]
More power to them,let's just hope the whole music world doesn't turn into this.
holy crap, but that's prolly the funniest thing i've ever read on here. it's like you're praying that art goes away to be replaced by corporate jingles.
seriously. i almost blew coffee out my nose laughing when i read that.
m3mnoch.
p.s. tears! i'm laughing at you so hard i have TEARS!!!
let me try to point out what you're missing. first, you can at least agree with the truism that "time is money", yes? if you don't believe that, then you've got a lot more education to find than i can give.
that being said, there are two finite things in this world -- real estate and time available. there will never be more square footage on the planet and there will never be more time in the day. countries can print more money. people can come up with more ideas. but, land and time are fixed. period. that's one of the reasons for "time is money."
now, stay with me here...
think about it. even if everything was "free" by being ad-driven, there is only so much attention (a single person's application of time) that can be spent with an ad, right?
so, imagine option 1: you have paid-for content -- a subscription model even. unfortunately, there are tons and tons of "free" alternatives out there that are ad supported. but your content isn't really that much better because of the low barriers to entry. and it's certainly not better and different enough to warrant a subscription and the consumer friction that causes. nobody subscribes. you go out of business.
now, imagine option 2: you have free content that gets paid for by ads, but nobody has the time to view your content because they're engaged with other content and their ads. movies, games, social networking, whatever. because, that's where their friends are linking them to and the network effect gives them the eyeballs. or because their content is better. or because of any of hundreds of reasons due to the crazy-low switching cost of the web. your visitor numbers fall. your advertisers stop advertising. you go out of business.
what's even worse than that?
combining the two: you have a paywall for your "good" content and everyone can get some of your "not-as-good" content for free by way of advertising revenue. so, for the half that's paid, see option 1 -- people can still get equivalent content without a subscription. for the unpaid half, see option 2 -- but worse because it's not your best content and it usually the "best" content that benefits from switching costs and network effects. and, for a multiplicitive effect, see the problems of ignoring the rule of "do one thing and do it well."
even worse, imagine this: you have free content that gets paid for by ads, but nobody has the time to view your content because they're engaged with other, better content and their ads. your advertisers stop advertising. you go out of business.
how much money do you make when everyone is walking right by your shop because all of a sudden, there are 50,000 shops that sell basically the same thing as you and they're all within an a single, simple step?
now what do you do?
welcome to what's called "real competition" rather than serendipity enabled by the false constraints of physical location and middlemen. welcome to a world where there's a glut of content vying for our attention. welcome to the attention economy.
everything is most certainly NOT free. the currency is just different than what you're used to. and getting people to even care enough to spend that new currency is the hard part.
because people who won't even bother to give you any of their attention most certainly won't give you any of their dollars.
except i'm not talking costs in the future offset by revenue from subscription plans today.
my point is the interchangeability of postage and license fees.
just like the physical dvd price is higher today because of postage, as the streaming choices increase (the whole reason behind these higher license fees) thus adding more value to those plans, the streaming only option will increase in price in the future. or probably even split out into various limited-by-hours options.
you're missing the cost of distribution. license fees and postage are essentially interchangeable fixed costs. and, when you look at their two-year $1.5 billion (yeah, with a "b" http://gigaom.com/video/netflix-could-lose-big-in-postal-rate-hike/ ) in postage costs, $16 million for a single, high-profile title for two years doesn't sound that bad.
you can negotiate licensing down as titles age and decrease in popularity. however, postage costs will only go up.
seems smart enough to me.
you know... i bet those netflix accountants can actually do math. who'da thunk?
i have sweet faith that someday content industries will figure it out. it's either nothing or market price. there is no in-between anymore. there are no middlemen. there is no more secret collusion. you can't artificially push the market price needle higher because you can no longer hide from nor block out your competition.
'cause, like it or not, you have to compete with free from now on.
games have (mostly) figured this out and profits are raging upward. give people what they want and you'll make money hand-over-fist. and what do people want? what will they pay for when it comes to content?
convenient access to a quality experience. end of story. period.
it is a truism. from the resurrection cakes in ddo to any song ever created at your fingertips in itunes. meet their need right then. don't make them wait. don't overprice it. find a solution in your industry to one of these two pain points (there are only these two points on the triangle you can control now -- convenience and quality) and you'll be rich.
fighting costs money. fulfilling makes money.
you mr. content provider, for pete's sake -- be a profit center and stop being a goddamn cost center.
all this confusion between infinite goods and scarce goods makes my head hurt.
all of this frothing about "lost sales" on infinite goods makes my head hurt.
all of this bile hurled at people who think infinite goods can be free advertising makes my head hurt.
all this mean name-calling of the devoted fans who just want to buy a limited edition item that has value to them makes me think your problem is this: you don't have fans.
no offense to the old media guys, but you can price your content as high as you want. if nobody is buying it, then it just isn't worth that much. unfortunately for you, you don't get to set the value of your content.
want to know what it's worth? fortunately for you, it's not $0 as you might suspect! how do i know? because netflix streaming content accounts for 2.5 times the bandwidth of bittorrent downloads.
here're all the pieces you need to do your new math:
- netflix has less than 1% of the total catalog of bittorrent.
- that tiny fraction still accounts for well over twice the use.
- people pay at least $8 a month for netflix. $0 for bittorrent.
see? people want to pay.
people just do NOT want to pay what YOU think your content is worth. they want to pay what THEY think your content is worth.
if you don't like that? if you want it to be like it used to be when you were the sole gatekeeper of content? well, buh-bye. the world needs bartenders too, you know?
maybe the read-between-the-lines is just about wifi-enabled phones and vendor lock-in.
meaning, these days, with open handset operating systems and a crap-ton of available wifi, you can't be locked in and forced to use a providers wireless network. thus, being crazy overcharged without real recourse.
i mean... it's a stretch, right? but i can't fathom they don't understand the difference between a phone and the network it's on.
> And NetFlix, and YouTube, and VoIP, and gaming...
srsly.
netflix is 20 percent of the downstream. bittorrent is 8.
"If 2 percent of Netflix customers account for one-fifth of the traffic on North American broadband lines, what will happen when more and more Netflixers begin to watch movies during peak times?"
first, you write something that someone else can just copy-paste and republish for free and then you come on here in the comments and personally engage with the folks reading your post?
geeez. are you trying to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk?
"That's the process — six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes."
"The fact that modern-day artists can't turn that into profit is entirely their fault."
artists prior to the 20th century found all kinds of ways to be profitable. the main one? being really, really good at their craft. if no one is willing to pay you to perform or sing or write for them? guess what? time for a new career.
you know... that reminds me. when did "starving artist" turn into "party like a rockstar?"
On the post: Once Again, If You Don't Offer Authorized Versions Of Released Content, Don't Be Surprised If People Get Unauthorized Copies
Re: They need to understand what market they are in
m3mnoch.
p.s. well, love, not "in-love." ewwww....
On the post: The Impact Of Egypt Cutting Itself Off From The Internet
Re: Re: Re:
uh... okay.
m3mnoch.
On the post: The Impact Of Egypt Cutting Itself Off From The Internet
Re:
and no, it's not just what happens when that atm can't spit out cash.
it's about credit not working which means cash only. it's about there not being enough physical cash reserves to survive nation-wide bank runs. it's about a lack of electronic credit causing stockpiles of cash forming in centralized areas which make looting and theft crazy lucrative.
it's about all this wealth suddenly moving to meat-space and the authorities not being able to do a thing about protecting it because they're too busy elsewhere.
and none of that even touches on foreign sentiment and engagement into the egyptian economy. the mere hint of wealth being suddenly lost like this will cause a ripple effect through all future investment not only in egypt, but similar "relatively stable" nations. think of it as kind of an investment bank run as everyone pulls their people and money out.
when your modern economy (which is really just about 1s and 0s getting transferred over the wire) gets completely shut down, bad shit happens.
trust me. it's not just about the lolcats and facebook status updates. this is bad, bad, bad.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week
btw, these posts are great
i would wager it does a lot to incentivize intelligent/witty/interesting conversation in comments. all of which keep the engagement high.
i know for myself at least, this is the only site i visit regularly outside of rather than from within my rss reader specifically for the community.
brilliant move.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Pomplamoose On Making A Career While Making Music They Like
Re: Re: Re:
For someone who likes music, music in and of itself is not hard work. What is hard work is making music to someone else's expectations other than your own.
[... snip ..]
More power to them,let's just hope the whole music world doesn't turn into this.
holy crap, but that's prolly the funniest thing i've ever read on here. it's like you're praying that art goes away to be replaced by corporate jingles.
seriously. i almost blew coffee out my nose laughing when i read that.
m3mnoch.
p.s. tears! i'm laughing at you so hard i have TEARS!!!
On the post: Dumb Trends: Tech Companies Hiring Pop Stars As 'Creative Directors'
Re:
lemme help.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110125/15591312819/cargo-cults-kevin-smith-difference-betw een-connecting-going-through-motions.shtml
m3mnoch.
On the post: Details Leak For The NY Times Paywall
Re: Re: Re:
nobody here disagrees with that.
let me try to point out what you're missing. first, you can at least agree with the truism that "time is money", yes? if you don't believe that, then you've got a lot more education to find than i can give.
that being said, there are two finite things in this world -- real estate and time available. there will never be more square footage on the planet and there will never be more time in the day. countries can print more money. people can come up with more ideas. but, land and time are fixed. period. that's one of the reasons for "time is money."
now, stay with me here...
think about it. even if everything was "free" by being ad-driven, there is only so much attention (a single person's application of time) that can be spent with an ad, right?
so, imagine option 1: you have paid-for content -- a subscription model even. unfortunately, there are tons and tons of "free" alternatives out there that are ad supported. but your content isn't really that much better because of the low barriers to entry. and it's certainly not better and different enough to warrant a subscription and the consumer friction that causes. nobody subscribes. you go out of business.
now, imagine option 2: you have free content that gets paid for by ads, but nobody has the time to view your content because they're engaged with other content and their ads. movies, games, social networking, whatever. because, that's where their friends are linking them to and the network effect gives them the eyeballs. or because their content is better. or because of any of hundreds of reasons due to the crazy-low switching cost of the web. your visitor numbers fall. your advertisers stop advertising. you go out of business.
what's even worse than that?
combining the two: you have a paywall for your "good" content and everyone can get some of your "not-as-good" content for free by way of advertising revenue. so, for the half that's paid, see option 1 -- people can still get equivalent content without a subscription. for the unpaid half, see option 2 -- but worse because it's not your best content and it usually the "best" content that benefits from switching costs and network effects. and, for a multiplicitive effect, see the problems of ignoring the rule of "do one thing and do it well."
even worse, imagine this: you have free content that gets paid for by ads, but nobody has the time to view your content because they're engaged with other, better content and their ads. your advertisers stop advertising. you go out of business.
how much money do you make when everyone is walking right by your shop because all of a sudden, there are 50,000 shops that sell basically the same thing as you and they're all within an a single, simple step?
now what do you do?
welcome to what's called "real competition" rather than serendipity enabled by the false constraints of physical location and middlemen. welcome to a world where there's a glut of content vying for our attention. welcome to the attention economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy
everything is most certainly NOT free. the currency is just different than what you're used to. and getting people to even care enough to spend that new currency is the hard part.
because people who won't even bother to give you any of their attention most certainly won't give you any of their dollars.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Will Hollywood Kill The Golden Goose By Squeezing Netflix Dry?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
my point is the interchangeability of postage and license fees.
just like the physical dvd price is higher today because of postage, as the streaming choices increase (the whole reason behind these higher license fees) thus adding more value to those plans, the streaming only option will increase in price in the future. or probably even split out into various limited-by-hours options.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Will Hollywood Kill The Golden Goose By Squeezing Netflix Dry?
Re: Re:
you can negotiate licensing down as titles age and decrease in popularity. however, postage costs will only go up.
seems smart enough to me.
you know... i bet those netflix accountants can actually do math. who'da thunk?
m3mnoch.
On the post: Will Hollywood Kill The Golden Goose By Squeezing Netflix Dry?
Re: I will mourn the loss of Netflix
'cause, like it or not, you have to compete with free from now on.
games have (mostly) figured this out and profits are raging upward. give people what they want and you'll make money hand-over-fist. and what do people want? what will they pay for when it comes to content?
convenient access to a quality experience. end of story. period.
it is a truism. from the resurrection cakes in ddo to any song ever created at your fingertips in itunes. meet their need right then. don't make them wait. don't overprice it. find a solution in your industry to one of these two pain points (there are only these two points on the triangle you can control now -- convenience and quality) and you'll be rich.
fighting costs money. fulfilling makes money.
you mr. content provider, for pete's sake -- be a profit center and stop being a goddamn cost center.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Debunking The 'But People Just Want Stuff For Free' Myth
Re: Re: Questions about rtb+cwf
m3mnoch.
On the post: Debunking The 'But People Just Want Stuff For Free' Myth
Re:
all this confusion between infinite goods and scarce goods makes my head hurt.
all of this frothing about "lost sales" on infinite goods makes my head hurt.
all of this bile hurled at people who think infinite goods can be free advertising makes my head hurt.
all this mean name-calling of the devoted fans who just want to buy a limited edition item that has value to them makes me think your problem is this: you don't have fans.
in other words, you're in the wrong business.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Hulu Realizes That It Can't Go Public Because Its Business Plan Is Hindered
maybe your content just isn't worth it?
no offense to the old media guys, but you can price your content as high as you want. if nobody is buying it, then it just isn't worth that much. unfortunately for you, you don't get to set the value of your content.
want to know what it's worth? fortunately for you, it's not $0 as you might suspect! how do i know? because netflix streaming content accounts for 2.5 times the bandwidth of bittorrent downloads.
here're all the pieces you need to do your new math:
- netflix has less than 1% of the total catalog of bittorrent.
- that tiny fraction still accounts for well over twice the use.
- people pay at least $8 a month for netflix. $0 for bittorrent.
see? people want to pay.
people just do NOT want to pay what YOU think your content is worth. they want to pay what THEY think your content is worth.
if you don't like that? if you want it to be like it used to be when you were the sole gatekeeper of content? well, buh-bye. the world needs bartenders too, you know?
there are no middlemen anymore.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Does The FCC Really Not Understand The Difference Between A Device Operating System And A Mobile Network?
About WiFi and Vendor Lock-in Maybe?
meaning, these days, with open handset operating systems and a crap-ton of available wifi, you can't be locked in and forced to use a providers wireless network. thus, being crazy overcharged without real recourse.
i mean... it's a stretch, right? but i can't fathom they don't understand the difference between a phone and the network it's on.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Myth Debunking: ISPs Are Profiting From 'Piracy'
Re: Re:
srsly.
netflix is 20 percent of the downstream. bittorrent is 8.
"If 2 percent of Netflix customers account for one-fifth of the traffic on North American broadband lines, what will happen when more and more Netflixers begin to watch movies during peak times?"
http://www.slate.com/id/2273314/
the isp's are feeling PAIN right now, not profit.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Homeland Security Presents 'Evidence' For Domain Seizures; Proves It Knows Little About The Internet - Or The Law
Re: Re:
bank robbers almost always use a getaway car in their robberies. we should just outlaw cars.
why didn't i think of that? i mean, those horse-and-buggy vendors can finally have their day!
m3mnoch.
On the post: Don't Blame 'Piracy' For Your Own Failures To Engage
srsly, helmet. what are you doing?
first, you write something that someone else can just copy-paste and republish for free and then you come on here in the comments and personally engage with the folks reading your post?
geeez. are you trying to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk?
*sigh*
the nerve of some people!
m3mnoch.
p.s. EXCELLENT job, btw.
On the post: If You Don't Get Every Detail Of Your TSA Detention Exactly Right, The TSA May Publicly Shame You
you think this is bad
*whistles*
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-s ecurity-little-bother
oh.
wait.
nevermind.
"That's the process — six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes."
and no groping needed.
m3mnoch.
On the post: Apple Pulls Grooveshark From App Store, Because Universal Music Doesn't Like It
/shrug
m3mnoch.
On the post: Content Creators Coming To Terms With The Fact That Their Works Will Be Shared
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"The fact that modern-day artists can't turn that into profit is entirely their fault."
artists prior to the 20th century found all kinds of ways to be profitable. the main one? being really, really good at their craft. if no one is willing to pay you to perform or sing or write for them? guess what? time for a new career.
you know... that reminds me. when did "starving artist" turn into "party like a rockstar?"
m3mnoch.
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