[lbo-talk] why Prince is right

Dennis Claxton ddclaxton at earthlink.net
Sat Jul 10 14:48:32 PDT 2010


At 11:38 AM 7/10/2010, shag carpet bomb wrote:


>Dwayne thinks these people are a minority: horse shit. It is at the
>heart of capitalism: how can i sit around and make money by getting
>OTHER people to do as much work as possible for as little as
>possible. the capitalist tries to maximize profits, the petty bourg
>by trying to conserve his costs by paying other petty bourgs as
>little as possible. Now, you'd think a small business owner, who
>relies on other people to pay their bills to him,

I think you're moving the goalpost. No one's disagreeing that exploitation is at the heart of capitalism. Dwayne's talking specifically about people wanting stuff free on the internet. I think maybe things are progressing in typical fashion. The first one is free.

At 11:15 AM 7/10/2010, Dwayne Monroe wrote:


>At this point in our digital history, I don't think a mistaken belief
>in "free" is a serious issue.

I don't see it either. The freetard movement is something like the tea party, small and loud.


>Like millions and millions of other people I:
>
>* Pay for media (music, books, movies, tv shows, newspapers) via
>iTunes for the iPhone and iPad
>
>* Pay for media viewing via Netflix streaming
>
>* Pay for eMusic
>
>* Pay a subscription fee for Hybridized.org
>
>* Pay for SomaFM.com
>
>* And I might even pay for Hulu.com

I pay for three of those and will be looking at the other three that I never heard of until now. (Someone should pay Dwayne for advertising). I pay more for music online than the zero I was previously paying because for a few years in the 2000s I just listened to the radio. Then my favorite radio station died and I discovered eMusic. I also pay more for movies now because instead of going to a movie once every month or two I pay Netflix a flat rate every month, whether I watch anything or not. And I don't think I'm alone. Most people I know wouldn't even know how to get free music online because they're not interested.



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