> Of course. But the kind of easy to use and nice to look at stuff that Apple
> specializes in is really rare in this world. Why? I do wonder if overpriced
> and restrictive has its advantages in avoiding the rank debasement of
> everything into a cheap shit commodity.
A fair point. It's basically Schumpeter's argument that too much competition is bad for innovation. Monopoly generates the extra profits for gentlemanly corporations to put into making better stuff in better ways. It's quite possibly true in a lot of industries. But socialists generally don't go around campaigning for monopolies so we can have nicer and more technologically advanced stuff while we wait for the revolution.
And elsewhere:
>I'm not sure how it's exactly "socialist." The programmers do their work
>for free, meaning they have to have other means of support. So they're
>doing the work in their spare time. That really doesn't transform social
>relations, does it?
>Is our model a world in which programmers - and musicians and writers
>- don't get paid for their work?
Well this is exactly why I questioned whether it was socialist. In a socialist world the producers of infinitely reproducible products would be publicly paid, the incomes ultimately coming out of other people's labour. It's not that hard to imagine.
In the meantime, the fact that musicians' and writers' livelihoods are under threat thanks to digital reproduction is a problem of capitalism, not socialism. (I don't think programmers are really all that threatened... and really, we shouldn't exaggerate how many musicians have been making a living off selling records, it's not that many. The worst deal is for writers.) The internet arrived and suddenly the commodity form doesn't reproduce these kinds of labour very well. Even if there were no piracy, the great fall in the cost of reproducing information would be devaluing this kind of work - as the decline of newspapers is showing. That side of it sucks. But in saying it sucks, we have two options: a reactionary one of trying to hold back the tide, celebrating the artisanal production that survives on the margins (or even, occasionally, flourishes), calling for ethical restraint, supporting police action against pirates; or a socialist option of pressing for a public solution. The second option has a lot going for it because we take advantage of the infinite reproducibility of these products, and the producer gets paid again.
Cheers, Mike Beggs scandalum.wordpress.com