4 ms·

> Just because the marginal cost of something is low/zero doesn't mean companies shouldn't charge for it. It definitely should. That's why some of the money co

> Just because the marginal cost of something is low/zero doesn't mean companies shouldn't charge for it. It definitely should. That's why some of the money collected beyond the "marginal cost" is invested in R&D (capitalism 101). Of course entire industries (health, IT, concrete..) have been used to living off siphoning public money from corrupt officials as grants and partnerships for R&D so they don't have to worry about anything but maximizing profits for their shareholders. But where is that model taking us? > Should an indie software developer using a freemium model be crucified because the binary they ship already contains the code for full functionality? Sure. Why is freemium even a thing? Would you imagine a music CD where a paid unique key is required to decrypt the 5 last tracks? Or a restaurant toilet where the toilet is free but you need 2$ more for toilet paper?! In principle, everything should be free for everyone because everything belongs to everyone. But even if you don't agree with this principle (why?), freemium is a fucked up model that only incentivizes producers fucking over users some way or another. > Economic rents are a very specific phenomenon and it simply does not mean charging for something that is perceived as being low/no effort. As an anarchist, i understand "rent" to be artificial value derived from "private property". Private property by definition is just a religious belief (materialized on a piece of paper, and guarded by the holy crusaders of the police), and does not involve efforts. The efforts to conceive and build the product (whether it's a CPU or a house) were provided beforehand, and by a different group of people than those reaping the benefits of this "rent". That's precisely why "property is theft": it creates debt from the users of a resource, to people who did not work to produce it (if there was any work involved at all, which may not be the case eg. for land ownership).

qeternity 5y ago
> In principle, everything should be free for everyone because everything belongs to everyone. Awesome. If I DM you my address, will you please ship me the device that you’re posting this from. It actually also belongs to me.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Tongue-in-cheek answer: you'd be disappointed in my laptop. The keyboard has half missing keys, and it's an old Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM. Residing in southern France, it'd probably be cheaper and more eco-friendly to find such hardware in your area ;) Serious answer: you're confusing private property with possession (usage-based property). Private property is the State-mandated religion (with which we're all brainwashed throughout school and on television) that says a piece of paper dictates who can or can't use a certain resource, and that the people who use it (eg. tenants) can't necessarily decide for it. Anarchism doesn't stand against personal possessions (everyone sleeping in dormitories is a McCarthyist strawman), on the contrary, it stands for the idea that the land belongs to whoever lives/works it. Your house is your house not because a piece of paper says so, but because you reside in it. A peasant's land is their land (whether individually or communally) not because a landlord said so, but because they work and care for it. Another way to look at it, is that if you are not a direct user of a certain resource, then you have no say in how it should be used. Why do the State and big corporations get to decide on how our neighborhoods should be managed, or to extract certain resources and pollute our water streams? Such decisions should belong to the people directly, not to some remote entity claiming legitimate exercise of power over the people.
gruez 5y ago
>Why is freemium even a thing? Would you imagine a music CD where a paid unique key is required to decrypt the 5 last tracks? Have you heard of... radio? ie. "you can listen to these songs for free, but it has ads and the rotation is random. alternatively you can buy the CD and listen to the same song any time you want without ads". >In principle, everything should be free for everyone because everything belongs to everyone. But even if you don't agree with this principle (why?), If everything belongs to everyone, it leads to a tragedy of the commons situation where everyone does the bare minimum, because there's no reward for doing more.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  > you can listen to these songs for free, but it has ads and the rotation is random The radio stations i listen to have exactly 0 ads (rely on donations), unless you count as "ads" messages they haven't been paid to spread. Also worth noting, i personally don't consider ads as a freemium model, because the song is the same whether you bought the CD or listen to it on the radio. Whereas in the software world, the program is limited in the free version. > tragedy of the commons That is a largely exaggerated capitalist meme. I'm not saying it can't exist, but many areas of life throughout human history have been managed communally without any such tragedy so there's definitely ways around this problem. > everyone does the bare minimum, because there's no reward for doing more As someone living in free communes for a long time now, that's definitely not my experience. Yes, there will always be one or two people (and not necessarily always the same) doing little, but in my experience people can't stand doing nothing for so long. We all crave to be part of something and contribute to making life better for everyone... just try to play video-games non-stop and you'll see after a few months you'll want to do something else ;) Also, in a free society, the reward for doing something, is the achievement of the task itself. In a capitalist society, tasks are rather meaningless: we do something useless, to get paid, to achieve some actual goals of ours. In a free society, we gather and decide on goals that make sense to us and how to reach them: there is less layers of indirection and a much tighter feedback loop which is much more rewarding than working for a boss.

qeternity 5y ago

> In principle, everything should be free for everyone because everything belongs to everyone. Awesome. If I DM you my address, will you please ship me the device that you’re posting this from. It actually also belongs to me.

southerntofu 5y ago
Tongue-in-cheek answer: you'd be disappointed in my laptop. The keyboard has half missing keys, and it's an old Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM. Residing in southern France, it'd probably be cheaper and more eco-friendly to find such hardware in your area ;) Serious answer: you're confusing private property with possession (usage-based property). Private property is the State-mandated religion (with which we're all brainwashed throughout school and on television) that says a piece of paper dictates who can or can't use a certain resource, and that the people who use it (eg. tenants) can't necessarily decide for it. Anarchism doesn't stand against personal possessions (everyone sleeping in dormitories is a McCarthyist strawman), on the contrary, it stands for the idea that the land belongs to whoever lives/works it. Your house is your house not because a piece of paper says so, but because you reside in it. A peasant's land is their land (whether individually or communally) not because a landlord said so, but because they work and care for it. Another way to look at it, is that if you are not a direct user of a certain resource, then you have no say in how it should be used. Why do the State and big corporations get to decide on how our neighborhoods should be managed, or to extract certain resources and pollute our water streams? Such decisions should belong to the people directly, not to some remote entity claiming legitimate exercise of power over the people.

gruez 5y ago

>Why is freemium even a thing? Would you imagine a music CD where a paid unique key is required to decrypt the 5 last tracks? Have you heard of... radio? ie. "you can listen to these songs for free, but it has ads and the rotation is random. alternatively you can buy the CD and listen to the same song any time you want without ads". >In principle, everything should be free for everyone because everything belongs to everyone. But even if you don't agree with this principle (why?), If everything belongs to everyone, it leads to a tragedy of the commons situation where everyone does the bare minimum, because there's no reward for doing more.

southerntofu 5y ago
> you can listen to these songs for free, but it has ads and the rotation is random The radio stations i listen to have exactly 0 ads (rely on donations), unless you count as "ads" messages they haven't been paid to spread. Also worth noting, i personally don't consider ads as a freemium model, because the song is the same whether you bought the CD or listen to it on the radio. Whereas in the software world, the program is limited in the free version. > tragedy of the commons That is a largely exaggerated capitalist meme. I'm not saying it can't exist, but many areas of life throughout human history have been managed communally without any such tragedy so there's definitely ways around this problem. > everyone does the bare minimum, because there's no reward for doing more As someone living in free communes for a long time now, that's definitely not my experience. Yes, there will always be one or two people (and not necessarily always the same) doing little, but in my experience people can't stand doing nothing for so long. We all crave to be part of something and contribute to making life better for everyone... just try to play video-games non-stop and you'll see after a few months you'll want to do something else ;) Also, in a free society, the reward for doing something, is the achievement of the task itself. In a capitalist society, tasks are rather meaningless: we do something useless, to get paid, to achieve some actual goals of ours. In a free society, we gather and decide on goals that make sense to us and how to reach them: there is less layers of indirection and a much tighter feedback loop which is much more rewarding than working for a boss.