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You know at some point in the last 20ish years, people really got used to the idea of free music. Once people get used to the idea of ‘free’, it’s like, good lu

You know at some point in the last 20ish years, people really got used to the idea of free music. Once people get used to the idea of ‘free’, it’s like, good luck arguing against that. I don’t think something like VSCode should be free, or a single api call on any platform, etc. Absolutely nothing should be free because people get too used to the idea of free. It’s a human failure.

ornxka 6y ago
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- runawaybottle 6y ago
  And it would be worth it. Never give an inch unless you want yards gone.
alexashka 6y ago
Has it occurred to you that paying for things is a recent, temporary mode of interaction between humans while free and good will is the default? You have it confused - prices is an arguably necessary, temporary condition, until we get back to simply from everyone according to their ability, to each according to their needs.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  I’d say that’s about as utopian of an idea as the unrestricted free market. In theory, sure, sounds great, but the pragmatic timescale it would take to get there would be beyond lifetimes. We’ll all be dead by the time these systems reach their true form. In your particular example for instance, human nature would wreck havoc in the form of abuse. I will point to (incoming snark) the very rare cases of slavery, underpaid labor, serfdom, like you know, these rare things that happened through the centuries. So yeah, I suppose that idea is ‘still working itself out’ two thousand years later. Fuck all that is my point, as many souls have been lost waiting for utopia. Ask the guys that built the pyramids.
  - alexashka 6y ago
    What's utopian about it? What do children pay their parents, or parents pay their kids? That's the relationship people start out with and one that is most natural. People seem to think that there is money, and before money, there was barter. That's fake news made up by economists (the barter before money bit). People have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Money has been around for a few thousand in select places and never used for most transactions by most people until extremely recently. I'd argue it's still not used for the most important transactions and the existence of food stamps, universal health care in every sane developed country, free education and subsidies for parents with children is simply some of the numerous examples of most people preferring free for things they deeply value and care about. Money is great for veblen goods and exchange among adversaries, everything else wants to be free. Free as in decided based on factors other than money, not free as in oxygen. I'm not articulating this too well, please have a look here for a take I'm trying to express, done by a proper journalist. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-...
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      I don’t think there’s enough liquidity in your system. Let’s say I think everyone should own a house. I then go ahead and help build a house for you. I would expect many others to have the same belief and build a house for me. If at any time people decide they no longer believe in home ownership, then the house I built for you had no value since no one will build my home when it’s my turn. This wouldn’t be a problem if you just paid me cash since it stores value.
      - alexashka 6y ago
        Right, you can't please everyone, all of the time, you can only please some people, some of the time. We can come up with pro and con examples for any set of ideas. I remain of the mindset that monetary transactions within a community are a net negative, largely because I think human dignity should not be something you can purchase, sell or bargain for. If we provide human dignity for every member and let money be something we use for nice-to-have items/services, that strikes me as a significant improvement.
- benjohnson 6y ago
  Get back? Please tell me at what point in history could a person just pick every item and have every service for free. Even if there was a society like that, I don't think I'd want to go - not only did they go extinct, they don't have mRNA vaccines, spacecraft, and Telemundo soaps.
- Guthur 6y ago
  What sort of nonsense are you talking about, monetary systems have existed for 1000s of years.
  - willvarfar 6y ago
    Humans have been humans for a lot longer than that!
    - nikisweeting 6y ago
      Yeah but we weren't very good at it.
spfzero 6y ago
When you set the price at free, you set the value of the work represented, at zero.

ornxka 6y ago

This post requires a Hacker News Gold account to view.

runawaybottle 6y ago
And it would be worth it. Never give an inch unless you want yards gone.

alexashka 6y ago

Has it occurred to you that paying for things is a recent, temporary mode of interaction between humans while free and good will is the default? You have it confused - prices is an arguably necessary, temporary condition, until we get back to simply from everyone according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

runawaybottle 6y ago
I’d say that’s about as utopian of an idea as the unrestricted free market. In theory, sure, sounds great, but the pragmatic timescale it would take to get there would be beyond lifetimes. We’ll all be dead by the time these systems reach their true form. In your particular example for instance, human nature would wreck havoc in the form of abuse. I will point to (incoming snark) the very rare cases of slavery, underpaid labor, serfdom, like you know, these rare things that happened through the centuries. So yeah, I suppose that idea is ‘still working itself out’ two thousand years later. Fuck all that is my point, as many souls have been lost waiting for utopia. Ask the guys that built the pyramids.
- alexashka 6y ago
  What's utopian about it? What do children pay their parents, or parents pay their kids? That's the relationship people start out with and one that is most natural. People seem to think that there is money, and before money, there was barter. That's fake news made up by economists (the barter before money bit). People have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Money has been around for a few thousand in select places and never used for most transactions by most people until extremely recently. I'd argue it's still not used for the most important transactions and the existence of food stamps, universal health care in every sane developed country, free education and subsidies for parents with children is simply some of the numerous examples of most people preferring free for things they deeply value and care about. Money is great for veblen goods and exchange among adversaries, everything else wants to be free. Free as in decided based on factors other than money, not free as in oxygen. I'm not articulating this too well, please have a look here for a take I'm trying to express, done by a proper journalist. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-...
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    I don’t think there’s enough liquidity in your system. Let’s say I think everyone should own a house. I then go ahead and help build a house for you. I would expect many others to have the same belief and build a house for me. If at any time people decide they no longer believe in home ownership, then the house I built for you had no value since no one will build my home when it’s my turn. This wouldn’t be a problem if you just paid me cash since it stores value.
    - alexashka 6y ago
      Right, you can't please everyone, all of the time, you can only please some people, some of the time. We can come up with pro and con examples for any set of ideas. I remain of the mindset that monetary transactions within a community are a net negative, largely because I think human dignity should not be something you can purchase, sell or bargain for. If we provide human dignity for every member and let money be something we use for nice-to-have items/services, that strikes me as a significant improvement.
benjohnson 6y ago
Get back? Please tell me at what point in history could a person just pick every item and have every service for free. Even if there was a society like that, I don't think I'd want to go - not only did they go extinct, they don't have mRNA vaccines, spacecraft, and Telemundo soaps.
Guthur 6y ago
What sort of nonsense are you talking about, monetary systems have existed for 1000s of years.
- willvarfar 6y ago
  Humans have been humans for a lot longer than that!
  - nikisweeting 6y ago
    Yeah but we weren't very good at it.

spfzero 6y ago

When you set the price at free, you set the value of the work represented, at zero.