[lbo-talk] your Facebook is their fortune

[shag carpet bomb]

At 07:24 PM 2/2/2009, Dwayne Monroe wrote:
>shag:
>
>
>I only find it annoying that people want everything for free and
>refuse to see how they're paying. That's been going on a long time,
>sure, but it's especially insidious these days and contributes to the
>notion that writers, artists, etc. don't need to be paid for their
>work. it's on the net! for free! download away! it's free! whee! that
>would be great, in the socialist figure, right now writers, editors,
>artists, and musicians actually, you know, have to make a fucking
>living.
>
>............
>
>
>
>
>It's true, a lot of people expect everything that comes from the
>Internet to be free.
>
>And this is especially true of music and movies. (No one expects items
>obtained via Amazon to be free, so there are limits.)
>
>
>For me, the key questions are:
>
>
>* How did this expectation develop?
>
>and
>
>* Why isn't this universally true?  Or to put it another way, why are
>both the Pirate Bay, the center of the piracy universe, *and* iTunes,
>the premier pay service, successful?
>
>
>Here's my fragment of an answer.
>
>
>In the beginning, when stories about Napster were on the covers of now
>dead media outlets such as Time magazine, the entertainment majors --
>represented by the RIAA and MPAA -- squandered an opportunity.
>
>The opportunity they squandered was a chance to set expectations for
>how digital media would be distributed.
>
>Napster's unexpectedly rapid rise showed that people wanted singles --
>they wanted the ability to mix and match the audio of their choice.
>Maybe you only like one song from Brit Brit's new album.  Why should
>you buy the whole thing?
>
>Unfortunately, this threatened the business model of the RIAA's
>members, outfits like Sony Music.  Their profit assumptions were based
>on the idea that people would purchase CDs for 15 dollars or more and
>that this would happen forever.
>
>Napster (and Limewire, among other services) gave people the choice of
>getting only what they wanted and nothing more.
>
>And the price was zero.
>
>
>Sony, et. al. could have created rival, reasonably priced services --
>perhaps based on a subscription fee or small, per unit charges as
>happened much later with iTunes.
>
>But for them it was, as the old Sinatra song goes: all or nothing at
>all.  They crushed Napster in its original form.  More importantly
>from a sociological point of view they inadvertently nurtured a free
>media culture.  By refusing to provide their customers with the
>service they clearly demonstrated they wanted, and by preventing early
>attempts at pay services from succeeding (remember, they wanted all or
>nothing at all) they compelled people to seek other routes.
>
>Routes which carried a zero price tag.
>
>
>This created the free media expectation.
>
>But as I mentioned earlier in this post there are limits.  iTunes has
>done very well.  Last time I checked it was quite high on the list of
>media outlets -- online or bricks and mortar.
>
>Why is it successful?
>
>
>iTunes gives people exactly what they want: the ability to mix and
>match and, just as critically, take their entertainment with them via
>a (usually) d'oh proof interface between software and player.
>
>
>Apple's pay to play ecology co-exists quite nicely with the 'free as
>in beer' culture of the Internet.
>
>
>Obviously, it's not enough for creative people to bemoan the cheapness
>or thieving ways of their biggest fans or hang onto the RIAA's
>coattails while it sues 14 year olds.  New pricing models and methods
>are required.  And maybe, revised expectations of the sort of money
>you'll make as a creative.
>
>I think iTunes and Netflix's download to your XBox service and Trent
>Reznor's experiments and Radiohead's choose your own price project and
>other things I can't recall right now demonstrate that people are
>quite happy to pay.  Or, *enough people* are quite happy to pay.
>
>But there has to be a method that works with how we really use media.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>.d.

yep yep. I guess what really annoys me is the half-baked crap people 
peddle. At work, for instance, you can find all kinds of people touting how 
wunderbar open source is. i agree. those same ppl bitch up a storm when our 
customers want us to put banner ads on our web sites. banner ads = evil. 
well, uh, goshes somebody has to make sure your paycheck doesn't bounce. 
the entire site is one big mass of advertising. christ. what's a banner 
ad?! one more on a page with at least 20 ads already.

so then they go on about how great craigslist is. look ma! no ads. well, 
someone is paying to keep craigslist going. i read somewhere that is an 
endless supply of VC angel investor money. they also rake in some dough in 
some markets -- which is just another model. for the most competitive 
slots, you ding the people who are willing to pay. their contribution 
supports the rest of the yo yos who want to place free singles ads and sell 
their moped wiht a free ad or give away their broken ass microwave with a 
free ad.

they go on and on about the wunderbarness of google. oh hey! guess what: 
google has ads. it's not free. it's no more free than the weekly 
alternative rag in your fair city and no more free than the weekly trading 
post newspaper if you live in yahooville. somebody's paying.

i guess it's annoying in the way that the system obscures all the relations 
that go into creating something. people sit there in wonder about this free 
whee application -- like facebook -- which, as Jordy says, provides you 
with this kewl tewl. I mean, not one of these people who tout this would 
want to work for free, but when they hear that there might be advertising 
involved or marketing research going on. oh. mi. lard! the horror!

never mind me. i'm just whining.

shag-a-weiner-whiner

"let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of 
debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a 
challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."

                                    -- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08

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