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> The biggest trick the Devil ever played was convincing people that online stuff is free. But the Devil always collects, sooner or later—and we are starting to
by JasonFruit 4y ago
> The biggest trick the Devil ever played was convincing people that online stuff is free. But the Devil always collects, sooner or later—and we are starting to learn the actual terms of this cursed deal.
I understand the author's point, but a lot of stuff online really is free! I give away my musical arrangements, my code, and my thoughts all the time, and so do lots of other people. There's all sorts of public domain stuff where people have used their resources to make it freely available to others. You can get lots of really valuable material online for free, really and truly. I'm old enough to remember having to pay, individually, for a book containing each one of Bach's works, and now they're available for free online, along with all of Schubert, Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, Palestrina — I could not have imagined such a wealth of music when I was a young musician.
It's important to remember that search engines, walled-garden media hosts, and the like are going to worsen your experience to make money, but it's also important to remember that sometimes people do good, generous things because they want to make the world better.
- rchaud 4y agoSome of the best wisdom on the Internet can be found in ancient, run-down posts on blogspot.com and other old-school blog domains. The age of the posts usually indicates an absence of the begging-bowl economy that Patreon and affiliate links have created.
- athorax 4y agoI think there is an important distinction between the content itself being free and the infrastructure cost required to host things costing money.
- falcolas 4y agoI think that the distinction comes with "who" is posting the content. An individual or not-for-profit organization? Probably actually free (and probably free as in beer and speech). But a for-profit organization posting content? There's gonna be strings attached.
- balaji1 4y agoMore ads could be a blessing. Just today I was thinking of cancelling YT premium so that I saw ads. Being interrupted by ads would discourage me from wasting more time on YT.
- rchaud 4y ago> There's all sorts of public domain stuff where people have used their resources to make it freely available to others. This is "old internet" talk. Remember the JustinGuitar website? It was revolutionary for its time, video-based guitar lessons, completely free! If that site had been created now, it would be a Patreon-only, "subscribe to me to Twitch" / "join my Twitter spaces" monetized mess.