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”Enjoy content. Not too much. Mostly paid [...] if you actually want to learn, to improve your mind, to improve your awareness and understanding of the world,

by GuiA 9y ago

”Enjoy content. Not too much. Mostly paid [...] if you actually want to learn, to improve your mind, to improve your awareness and understanding of the world, you have to shell out.” The “paid” part seems awfully arbitrary. I went to a great exhibit the other night, where I got to see wonderful photography, for free. I just read a great biology paper published for free by the Royal Society on my way to work. And I am now listening to a fascinating NPR podcast, also downloaded for free. I guess my taxes paid for all of those in some way (even though I only lived in the UK for a year, so that was a meager contribution to the Royal Society’s coffers), but I wouldn’t say I “shelled out” for all these things.

colanderman 9y ago
On a thread about a week ago another commenter also pointed out that some of the best content on the web is in (free) sites maintained by hobbyists, on some specialized topic or other, and that this content is more often than not difficult to find because it doesn't SEO well. (Which should be a strong indicator that Google's SEO algorithm is wildly broken from a user's point of view. But at this point, Google, the de-facto search and web advertisement monopoly, has no incentive to prioritize quality content, and every incentive to prioritize content that brings them ad revenue. Which garbage content, presented poorly, is great at doing.) Some days I long for DMOZ…
commandlinefan 9y ago
Well, not that I don't believe that there is a lot of good, free content out there - on the web and off - I have found that, when I want to learn a new technology like Git, or Scala, or Angular, the $30 or so I spend on an O'Reilly book is well worth the time I save plodding through incomplete blog posts or sparsely maintained documentation pages.
dredmorbius 9y ago
You've just hit on what's almost certainly the answer: tax-financed content. Information is a public good. It should be financed as public goods are: via taxes, based on ability to pay (e.g., progressive taxation). "At the Graduate Center, we believe knowledge is a public good. This idea inspires our research, teaching, and public events. We invite you to join us for timely discussions, diverse cultural perspectives, and thought-provoking ideas." https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Public-Programming/GC-Presents https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Public-Programming/GC-Presents Joseph Stiglitz, "Knowledge as a Global Public Good," in Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century, Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg, Marc A. Stern (eds.), United Nations Development Programme, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 308-325. http://s1.downloadmienphi.net/file/downloadfile6/151/1384343.pdf http://s1.downloadmienphi.net/file/downloadfile6/151/1384343...

by GuiA 9y ago

colanderman 9y ago

On a thread about a week ago another commenter also pointed out that some of the best content on the web is in (free) sites maintained by hobbyists, on some specialized topic or other, and that this content is more often than not difficult to find because it doesn't SEO well. (Which should be a strong indicator that Google's SEO algorithm is wildly broken from a user's point of view. But at this point, Google, the de-facto search and web advertisement monopoly, has no incentive to prioritize quality content, and every incentive to prioritize content that brings them ad revenue. Which garbage content, presented poorly, is great at doing.) Some days I long for DMOZ…

commandlinefan 9y ago

Well, not that I don't believe that there is a lot of good, free content out there - on the web and off - I have found that, when I want to learn a new technology like Git, or Scala, or Angular, the $30 or so I spend on an O'Reilly book is well worth the time I save plodding through incomplete blog posts or sparsely maintained documentation pages.

dredmorbius 9y ago

You've just hit on what's almost certainly the answer: tax-financed content. Information is a public good. It should be financed as public goods are: via taxes, based on ability to pay (e.g., progressive taxation). "At the Graduate Center, we believe knowledge is a public good. This idea inspires our research, teaching, and public events. We invite you to join us for timely discussions, diverse cultural perspectives, and thought-provoking ideas." https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Public-Programming/GC-Presents https://www.gc.cuny.edu/Public-Programming/GC-Presents Joseph Stiglitz, "Knowledge as a Global Public Good," in Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century, Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg, Marc A. Stern (eds.), United Nations Development Programme, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 308-325. http://s1.downloadmienphi.net/file/downloadfile6/151/1384343.pdf http://s1.downloadmienphi.net/file/downloadfile6/151/1384343...