4 ms·

Yes. They have been for decades. Thankfully the internet created another door, but we'll see how long that lasts...

• SmellTheGlove 9y ago
  > Thankfully the internet created another door, but we'll see how long that lasts... Can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. The interesting thing about the Internet is that its creators were either unaware, didn't care, or more likely, didn't see as negative (regarding the economic impacts) they were creating something that would eliminate scarcity of information. Everyone else observing either shared that lack of awareness in slowing the train, or was not able to foresee the practical impacts. Any attempt to put the brakes on now is going to be a net economic loss. Profit-seeking entities have an interest in preserving the internet as-is, even if they make occasional short term decisions counter to that (like abandoning net neutrality). The handful of industries that profit entirely off of information scarcity will either adjust or go away. They really should spend their money finding new value streams rather than fighting piracy. That's not winnable.
  • teddyh 9y ago
    > Can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. Some seem to think it’s possible: The Digital Imprimatur (https://fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/) was written in 2003, and it’s mostly gotten worse since then; see The coming war on general-purpose computing (https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html).
    • SmellTheGlove 9y ago
      They've had almost 15 years since they published. Almost a full generation. An eternity in internet time. Wait until our kids get their hands on this shit. They were born without the notion of information scarcity. Speaking of Internet Time, remember when Swatch tried to do that? :) Heh, I don't know what made me think of that, but man that was fun.
      • marcosdumay 9y ago
        > They've had almost 15 years since they published. And the unlockable computers are already becoming commonplace, there are already many countries where using a debugger to access locked data is a crime, and the government is already watching us all - unwilling to actually act over that information, but who knows what way they'll go in the future? We are in the heat of that exact war, and the winning side is far from defined.
        • SmellTheGlove 9y ago
          Good points. I'm a bit of an optimist on the subject, but everything you're saying is true.
  • Angostura 9y ago
    And once the publishing, movie and music industries have 'gone away, together with the authors, artist and producers who rely on them for a living, what kind of world will that be?
    • SmellTheGlove 9y ago
      There's a demand for content. Some of the distribution value proposition is in question. I don't think entire industries will disappear, but I do think there will be winners and losers based on who adjusts. As someone else in this thread said - you gotta be better than free. That's true in many cases. Music is a great example - it's more convenient to buy or subscribe than it is to pirate it.
    • tom_mellior 9y ago
      Scientific publishing specificially (the topic here) will go on as before. Unlike the other industries you mention, the creators are not paid from the money collected by the publisher. They are paid by their own employers. They get paid the exact same salary whether they put a free PDF of their work on arXiv or get it published behind a paywall. Scientists have no interest whatsoever in paywalls, except that they want to be published, and historically the companies with the paywalls were the only way to get published.