4 ms·

What about MP3, MP4, H264 etc? Aren't they good examples of successful formats despite the necessary licensing fees etc?

mjevans 3y ago
They're successful mostly because (many) end users ignore patents; at least the ones that don't work at large companies with dedicated legal departments (and targets on their back because they have actual money). Further, that's why Vorbis, VP9, AV1 etc, show less adoption, even though they're free, for end users the other formats have been baked into hardware that only works with the closed ecosystems and the average guy can ignore the patents and continue to work with that non-free ecosystem.
_greim_ 3y ago
Those technologies aren't examples of formats succeeding purely on their merits, so much as being established safe paths through a legal minefield.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  They're established even in places that don't care about U.S. legal minefields, which seems to prove the parent's point.
kristopolous 3y ago
Their are private copying levies - essentially blank media has a royalty paid to lobbying groups. Here's the US version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#United_St... I don't know if this counts though. It's not crippleware or control, it's a pretty modest nominal tax on a physical good (between 2 and 3%) that otherwise already costs money. You could say the market pivoted away from things covered by the law into the area of the exceptions but that's a little too neoclassical for actual human behavior - I'd need to see significant direct evidence to support the idea that a 2% cost increase was both passed on to the consumer and the consumer made significant purchasing decisions from that price signal delta. I'm going to guess that in practice, the 2% difference was absorbed in, for example, cheaper packaging, scaled manufacturing, permitting larger margins for QoS failures or by placing on cheaper areas of the distributor's shelf space as opposed to being directly transmitted to the actual consumer price of say $9.80 versus $9.99. Even if it was directly transmitted, the majority of consumers aren't that discretionary with such small deltas. But this is another topic entirely. Regardless, that's the only thing I can find that disputes my initial claim.

mjevans 3y ago

They're successful mostly because (many) end users ignore patents; at least the ones that don't work at large companies with dedicated legal departments (and targets on their back because they have actual money). Further, that's why Vorbis, VP9, AV1 etc, show less adoption, even though they're free, for end users the other formats have been baked into hardware that only works with the closed ecosystems and the average guy can ignore the patents and continue to work with that non-free ecosystem.

_greim_ 3y ago

Those technologies aren't examples of formats succeeding purely on their merits, so much as being established safe paths through a legal minefield.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
They're established even in places that don't care about U.S. legal minefields, which seems to prove the parent's point.

kristopolous 3y ago

Their are private copying levies - essentially blank media has a royalty paid to lobbying groups. Here's the US version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#United_St... I don't know if this counts though. It's not crippleware or control, it's a pretty modest nominal tax on a physical good (between 2 and 3%) that otherwise already costs money. You could say the market pivoted away from things covered by the law into the area of the exceptions but that's a little too neoclassical for actual human behavior - I'd need to see significant direct evidence to support the idea that a 2% cost increase was both passed on to the consumer and the consumer made significant purchasing decisions from that price signal delta. I'm going to guess that in practice, the 2% difference was absorbed in, for example, cheaper packaging, scaled manufacturing, permitting larger margins for QoS failures or by placing on cheaper areas of the distributor's shelf space as opposed to being directly transmitted to the actual consumer price of say $9.80 versus $9.99. Even if it was directly transmitted, the majority of consumers aren't that discretionary with such small deltas. But this is another topic entirely. Regardless, that's the only thing I can find that disputes my initial claim.