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>> Digital goods aren’t naturally scarce. The marginal cost to replicate them is practically zero, as anyone who ever copy-and-pasted something can attest to. F

>> Digital goods aren’t naturally scarce. The marginal cost to replicate them is practically zero, as anyone who ever copy-and-pasted something can attest to. For this reason, digital scarcity used to be an oxymoron. If something is digital, it is just information, and information can be easily copied. This is still true. Artificial scarcity is artificial. The only way to enforce artificial scarcity is through laws / legal systems and DRM.

rakoo 4y ago
And artificial scarcity only exists because the entirety of our system is based on making money off of scarcity
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Is this comment about copyright? Obviously, excessively long copyright terms are a problem, but what is the alternative to a short copyright term to motivate a non taxpayer funded entity to engage in a venture with very high initial costs and very low marginal costs to copy?
  - rakoo 4y ago
    It's about the economic and political system where things are not in abundance so to spread them among the population we give a financial value to each of those things and those who own the biggest wallet can get it. How do you get money in your wallet ? By already having money in your wallet: the more you have, the easier it is to have even more, because those who don't have enough must sell their time and energy, the only resource they have in abundance, to buy food and pay rent. Digital scarcity doesn't exist. If you can copy one time, it costs nothing to copy a million times more. But that breaks the entire system, so it has to be artificially blocked. > what is the alternative to a short copyright term to motivate Scarcity, and money, doesn't motivate anyone. People need money not because they want to get rich but because money is mandatory to buy food and pay rent. There are more than 73 million users on github (https://octoverse.github.com/ https://octoverse.github.com/). How many of them do you think went in for the money ? How many actually received any ? Copyright is not a motivator to create, quite the contrary: it's a motivator to milk as much juice as possible from a specific content, and to prevent the creation of content too close to it in fear it might jeopardize the revenue stream. Copyright has historically prevented the dissemination of knowledge, and the absence of copyright has actually lead to a better, wider circulation of information (and arguably a better educated population): https://archive.ph/ybifz https://archive.ph/ybifz > non taxpayer funded Here is the issue: what is wrong with taxes ? If a private person makes money, especially off of the work of others, why is it good to not share it with the population ? What is inherently good in a system that allows those who already own to be safe, but those who don't have to rely on individualistic schemes to hope survive ? Historically, high taxes have led to a higher quality of life for most, specifically because it is better redistributed. There is no problem with taxes.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      > Scarcity, and money, doesn't motivate anyone. I will simply have to disagree. Obviously, I cannot prove everyone working in movie studios or newsrooms or software companies will answer that money does not motivate them, but I highly suspect people are working 18 hour days or traveling to warzones or poring through legal filings at least partially because it will help them feed/shelter themselves. > https://archive.ph/ybifz https://archive.ph/ybifz Interesting article, but not sure how that would apply in entertainment media markets. > Here is the issue: what is wrong with taxes ? Nothing, let us see more taxpayer funded R&D in the public domain. But I think the problems of copyright are mostly due to excessive terms. Completely getting rid of them means getting rid of big budget movies and whatnot, or funding them with taxpayer money (which I am not a proponent of).
  - xigoi 4y ago
    https://justforfunnoreally.dev/ https://justforfunnoreally.dev/ Alternatively, a contract.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Copyright does not prevent anyone from doing that. The question is how to incentivize very high initial cost, low marginal cost ventures. Assuming you want to incentivize them. Like $100M movies or software. Or $10M+ journalism ventures. Lawyers, logistics for travel to warzones, salaries, etc.
olalonde 4y ago
> The only way to enforce artificial scarcity is through laws / legal systems and DRM. The author's point is that Bitcoin does not require any of those.
- thesuperbigfrog 4y ago
  >> The author's point is that Bitcoin does not require any of those. Bitcoin's artificial scarcity only has value to those who value it. Can a government tax you for Bitcoin-based transactions (for example: sales tax / VAT) or for newly-minted Bitcoin you mine? If someone steals Bitcoin from you (perhaps through malware that silently redirects a transaction) or if someone steals your Bitcoin "wallet", what recourse do you have? (Virtual security of cryptography, Bitcoin, etc. does not always hold up in the real-world: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ )
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - olalonde 4y ago
    What is your point? That legal systems are useful? I didn't say they weren't... Simply that Bitcoin doesn't require one for its scarcity and transaction mechanism.
    - thesuperbigfrog 4y ago
      >> What is your point? That legal systems are useful? I didn't say they weren't... Simply that Bitcoin doesn't require one for its scarcity and transaction mechanism. I disagree. Bitcoin DOES need real world legal systems built around transactions to be useful in the real world: People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin lacks these protections. If someone steals your Bitcoins, how do you get it back? How do you dispute fraudulent Bitcoin transactions?

rakoo 4y ago

And artificial scarcity only exists because the entirety of our system is based on making money off of scarcity

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Is this comment about copyright? Obviously, excessively long copyright terms are a problem, but what is the alternative to a short copyright term to motivate a non taxpayer funded entity to engage in a venture with very high initial costs and very low marginal costs to copy?
- rakoo 4y ago
  It's about the economic and political system where things are not in abundance so to spread them among the population we give a financial value to each of those things and those who own the biggest wallet can get it. How do you get money in your wallet ? By already having money in your wallet: the more you have, the easier it is to have even more, because those who don't have enough must sell their time and energy, the only resource they have in abundance, to buy food and pay rent. Digital scarcity doesn't exist. If you can copy one time, it costs nothing to copy a million times more. But that breaks the entire system, so it has to be artificially blocked. > what is the alternative to a short copyright term to motivate Scarcity, and money, doesn't motivate anyone. People need money not because they want to get rich but because money is mandatory to buy food and pay rent. There are more than 73 million users on github (https://octoverse.github.com/ https://octoverse.github.com/). How many of them do you think went in for the money ? How many actually received any ? Copyright is not a motivator to create, quite the contrary: it's a motivator to milk as much juice as possible from a specific content, and to prevent the creation of content too close to it in fear it might jeopardize the revenue stream. Copyright has historically prevented the dissemination of knowledge, and the absence of copyright has actually lead to a better, wider circulation of information (and arguably a better educated population): https://archive.ph/ybifz https://archive.ph/ybifz > non taxpayer funded Here is the issue: what is wrong with taxes ? If a private person makes money, especially off of the work of others, why is it good to not share it with the population ? What is inherently good in a system that allows those who already own to be safe, but those who don't have to rely on individualistic schemes to hope survive ? Historically, high taxes have led to a higher quality of life for most, specifically because it is better redistributed. There is no problem with taxes.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > Scarcity, and money, doesn't motivate anyone. I will simply have to disagree. Obviously, I cannot prove everyone working in movie studios or newsrooms or software companies will answer that money does not motivate them, but I highly suspect people are working 18 hour days or traveling to warzones or poring through legal filings at least partially because it will help them feed/shelter themselves. > https://archive.ph/ybifz https://archive.ph/ybifz Interesting article, but not sure how that would apply in entertainment media markets. > Here is the issue: what is wrong with taxes ? Nothing, let us see more taxpayer funded R&D in the public domain. But I think the problems of copyright are mostly due to excessive terms. Completely getting rid of them means getting rid of big budget movies and whatnot, or funding them with taxpayer money (which I am not a proponent of).
- xigoi 4y ago
  https://justforfunnoreally.dev/ https://justforfunnoreally.dev/ Alternatively, a contract.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Copyright does not prevent anyone from doing that. The question is how to incentivize very high initial cost, low marginal cost ventures. Assuming you want to incentivize them. Like $100M movies or software. Or $10M+ journalism ventures. Lawyers, logistics for travel to warzones, salaries, etc.

olalonde 4y ago

> The only way to enforce artificial scarcity is through laws / legal systems and DRM. The author's point is that Bitcoin does not require any of those.

thesuperbigfrog 4y ago
>> The author's point is that Bitcoin does not require any of those. Bitcoin's artificial scarcity only has value to those who value it. Can a government tax you for Bitcoin-based transactions (for example: sales tax / VAT) or for newly-minted Bitcoin you mine? If someone steals Bitcoin from you (perhaps through malware that silently redirects a transaction) or if someone steals your Bitcoin "wallet", what recourse do you have? (Virtual security of cryptography, Bitcoin, etc. does not always hold up in the real-world: https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ )
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- olalonde 4y ago
  What is your point? That legal systems are useful? I didn't say they weren't... Simply that Bitcoin doesn't require one for its scarcity and transaction mechanism.
  - thesuperbigfrog 4y ago
    >> What is your point? That legal systems are useful? I didn't say they weren't... Simply that Bitcoin doesn't require one for its scarcity and transaction mechanism. I disagree. Bitcoin DOES need real world legal systems built around transactions to be useful in the real world: People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin lacks these protections. If someone steals your Bitcoins, how do you get it back? How do you dispute fraudulent Bitcoin transactions?