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I don't see why you need to open with an insult. By your analogy, all copyable digital goods are like water, regardless of what they cost to produce initially,

I don't see why you need to open with an insult. By your analogy, all copyable digital goods are like water, regardless of what they cost to produce initially, because the cost of copying is close to zero. If I'm wrong, please explain. In your second paragraph are you suggesting that digital goods will be supported by donations? Github doesn't sell digital goods. They operate a service.

drostie 15y ago
(1) I didn't need to and I'm not sure that it was in fact an insult. (2) Well, the first thing is that I don't know what "all copyable digital goods are like water" means. Perhaps in context you mean "all copyable digital goods should be offered for very cheap prices." I'm not sure I agree with that. Either way I'm not sure that it implies, by itself, that "the cost of producing unprotected digital goods in general can only be covered by selling some non-digital good or service in conjunction with it." (3) No. In my second paragraph I am explicating the two ways that I see to understand your original statement: the narrow way ("people will not pay for bits period") which is wrong, and the broad way ("people can always be viewed as paying for something other than the bits, like the service to access the bits or the authenticity of getting the bits from some official retailer") which I think doesn't really rule out any particular payments for any particular practices. I have no idea what exactly you're trying to "rule out". This is all complicated by the fact that as far as I can tell, these are apparently beliefs which you are trying to ascribe to me. That misunderstands the point of my analogy, which is that there is no "free rider" problem generated particular to digital goods sans artificial scarcity. A "free rider" problem occurs when nobody wants to pay to maintain a service. The point of the water analogy is twofold: first, it is to show the absurdity of worrying about free-riders when there is little to no maintenance cost. Second, it is to show how trying to punish those so-called "free riders" is just going to alienate people who might otherwise like you. (4) That's why I didn't say that they sold digital goods. o_O.
- rbarooah 15y ago
  The cost of digital goods isn't in the copying or "maintenance" as you say, it's in the initial production. Copyable digital goods are special because unlike the majority of physical goods, they are templates that can be used to make virtually free copies of themselves. The first copy still needs to be paid for somehow, as do improvements. A free rider problem exists if the unwillingness of people to buy copies because they can easily avoid paying, results in these first copies not being produced. Your analogy doesn't counter this at all. You are simply suggesting that some digital goods can be financed and given away for free because they enhance the value of a service or non-digital good that provides revenue to the creator. I don't dispute that this is a valid option for certain kinds of good. I do agree with you that trying to 'punish' customers or potential customers is a mistake, even if they are free riding on your business model, but I think that's a separate issue.
  - drostie 15y ago
    Let me get this structure right, so that I can be sure that I understand you, before you go on. (I'm a little perplexed because if the first copies weren't produced, that would obviate the willingness of people to buy copies in the first place.) You're saying, I think, that some art may never be: and this is because the artist is not convinced that they can make it profitable, and this is because they see their audience as too far predisposed to pirating their content to actually pay for it. If that's right, then it's true that I'm not really handling that problem with my original analogy -- I wouldn't even really classify this as a "free rider" problem per se. One question which I'd like to ask up-front is whether this is really a problem. I'm not so sure. If you think about it, it requires a really peculiar set of circumstances. One particular problem is that if you didn't have piracy, that doesn't mean that the pirates would be your customers. So you are very restricted in price range: you have to be unable to amortize the costs of the project normally, but you have to be so addictive that pirates would be your customers and you could amortize the costs of the project if piracy weren't a factor. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying that the more I think about it, the harder it is to come up with a clear example that I can use to think through to find a solution. (Maybe I'm peculiar, but that's the way I think about problems: I call particular instances to mind and throw lots of ideas against them hoping one of them sticks as a solution. I'm having trouble seeing a particular instance which wouldn't already be solved by, say, Kickstarter or the BBC.) Well, thanks. It's interesting to think about in any case. I guess I'd just end on a hopeful note: hopefully the production costs for art steadily drop down as well, as more and more technology becomes cheaper. There will be human-professional costs that cannot go down because people have got to eat, but they just don't seem like the most significant costs in producing art -- at the very least, bands haven't stopped living off of live shows yet, and theaters can still cover their actors and set staff with simple ticketing. I will also make the hopeful comment that people really do care about authenticity enough to support artists. That's why fashion design can still be lucrative even though there's a huge industry dedicated to knock-offs.

drostie 15y ago

(1) I didn't need to and I'm not sure that it was in fact an insult. (2) Well, the first thing is that I don't know what "all copyable digital goods are like water" means. Perhaps in context you mean "all copyable digital goods should be offered for very cheap prices." I'm not sure I agree with that. Either way I'm not sure that it implies, by itself, that "the cost of producing unprotected digital goods in general can only be covered by selling some non-digital good or service in conjunction with it." (3) No. In my second paragraph I am explicating the two ways that I see to understand your original statement: the narrow way ("people will not pay for bits period") which is wrong, and the broad way ("people can always be viewed as paying for something other than the bits, like the service to access the bits or the authenticity of getting the bits from some official retailer") which I think doesn't really rule out any particular payments for any particular practices. I have no idea what exactly you're trying to "rule out". This is all complicated by the fact that as far as I can tell, these are apparently beliefs which you are trying to ascribe to me. That misunderstands the point of my analogy, which is that there is no "free rider" problem generated particular to digital goods sans artificial scarcity. A "free rider" problem occurs when nobody wants to pay to maintain a service. The point of the water analogy is twofold: first, it is to show the absurdity of worrying about free-riders when there is little to no maintenance cost. Second, it is to show how trying to punish those so-called "free riders" is just going to alienate people who might otherwise like you. (4) That's why I didn't say that they sold digital goods. o_O.

rbarooah 15y ago
The cost of digital goods isn't in the copying or "maintenance" as you say, it's in the initial production. Copyable digital goods are special because unlike the majority of physical goods, they are templates that can be used to make virtually free copies of themselves. The first copy still needs to be paid for somehow, as do improvements. A free rider problem exists if the unwillingness of people to buy copies because they can easily avoid paying, results in these first copies not being produced. Your analogy doesn't counter this at all. You are simply suggesting that some digital goods can be financed and given away for free because they enhance the value of a service or non-digital good that provides revenue to the creator. I don't dispute that this is a valid option for certain kinds of good. I do agree with you that trying to 'punish' customers or potential customers is a mistake, even if they are free riding on your business model, but I think that's a separate issue.
- drostie 15y ago
  Let me get this structure right, so that I can be sure that I understand you, before you go on. (I'm a little perplexed because if the first copies weren't produced, that would obviate the willingness of people to buy copies in the first place.) You're saying, I think, that some art may never be: and this is because the artist is not convinced that they can make it profitable, and this is because they see their audience as too far predisposed to pirating their content to actually pay for it. If that's right, then it's true that I'm not really handling that problem with my original analogy -- I wouldn't even really classify this as a "free rider" problem per se. One question which I'd like to ask up-front is whether this is really a problem. I'm not so sure. If you think about it, it requires a really peculiar set of circumstances. One particular problem is that if you didn't have piracy, that doesn't mean that the pirates would be your customers. So you are very restricted in price range: you have to be unable to amortize the costs of the project normally, but you have to be so addictive that pirates would be your customers and you could amortize the costs of the project if piracy weren't a factor. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying that the more I think about it, the harder it is to come up with a clear example that I can use to think through to find a solution. (Maybe I'm peculiar, but that's the way I think about problems: I call particular instances to mind and throw lots of ideas against them hoping one of them sticks as a solution. I'm having trouble seeing a particular instance which wouldn't already be solved by, say, Kickstarter or the BBC.) Well, thanks. It's interesting to think about in any case. I guess I'd just end on a hopeful note: hopefully the production costs for art steadily drop down as well, as more and more technology becomes cheaper. There will be human-professional costs that cannot go down because people have got to eat, but they just don't seem like the most significant costs in producing art -- at the very least, bands haven't stopped living off of live shows yet, and theaters can still cover their actors and set staff with simple ticketing. I will also make the hopeful comment that people really do care about authenticity enough to support artists. That's why fashion design can still be lucrative even though there's a huge industry dedicated to knock-offs.