4 ms·

What? These things take ludicrous amounts of time to produce, on top of several years of experience to gain the baseline skills required to make a typeface that

What? These things take ludicrous amounts of time to produce, on top of several years of experience to gain the baseline skills required to make a typeface that's even remotely palatable. We absolutely should preserve commercial incentive for people to make IP of such importance (both functionally and artistically).

pseg134 3y ago
Give me a break, we are talking about fonts here. If there was never another font created 99.9% of the world wouldn’t notice or care.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Exactly, this is why every typeface you see in the world is a free one. /s Nothing is stopping people from making nor using free fonts and yet many people and organizations freely choose to spend thousands of dollars on something that they perceive to be "better."
anthonyskipper 3y ago
If we made it illegal to charge money for, we would have just as many good fonts as we do now. We should just change the law to outlaw making money this way.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  What? Why would someone spend decades of their lives mastering a craft like typeface design if there were no way to make money from it? How could someone justify it?
  - anthonyskipper 3y ago
    That is like asking how could linux exist. Use your brain and imagine. We would likely have many more great fonts than we do today if you outlawed charging for them because people would no long have a protectionist mindset. It would be easy for people to modify existing ones so they worked better for various issues, and it wouldn't stop people creating beautiful new ones for whatever reason they wanted like art... or like linux. Sometimes the world works better without capitalism though that might be hard to believe.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      You are aware that Linux is in fact supported by commercial enterprises of various sizes all up and down the value chain, right? And yeah, it’s great that we happened upon a quasi-religious movement in software that has managed to align itself with commercial interests. OSS, in my opinion, will go down as one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Want to know why it’s such an achievement? Because it was profoundly unlikely and continues to be difficult in all sorts of ways. Question: What’s your job and your approximate hourly rate? Is it something that requires years or decades of training and do you charge $0?
      - anthonyskipper 3y ago
        Yes, I'm aware, but if none of those companies existed linux would still be doing great. Same way that if we made it so you couldn't charge for fonts the entire ecosystem would still be doing great. We don't need the rent seeking.
        ethanbond 3y ago
        So what do you do and what do you charge for it?
arh68 3y ago
How anyone can disagree with you is just bizarre. Don't like paid fonts? Don't use them. Don't think they're "meant to be IP" ? Too bad; they are. Don't think fonts matter ? Use Comic Sans MS the rest of your life, go ahead. If I develop a website for someone and pay for Oracle, that does not grant free Oracle licenses to everyone I hand my work off to. Why would anyone think that ? s/Oracle/OpenAI/g. s/Oracle/whatever you make money on/g. Just because one doesn't value the work of font creators doesn't mean the rest of us must commoditize their work. You might think there are huge networks of font pirates creating even-better fonts than those run-of-the-mill paid fonts, but it's just a fantasy.

pseg134 3y ago

Give me a break, we are talking about fonts here. If there was never another font created 99.9% of the world wouldn’t notice or care.

ethanbond 3y ago
Exactly, this is why every typeface you see in the world is a free one. /s Nothing is stopping people from making nor using free fonts and yet many people and organizations freely choose to spend thousands of dollars on something that they perceive to be "better."

anthonyskipper 3y ago

If we made it illegal to charge money for, we would have just as many good fonts as we do now. We should just change the law to outlaw making money this way.

ethanbond 3y ago
What? Why would someone spend decades of their lives mastering a craft like typeface design if there were no way to make money from it? How could someone justify it?
- anthonyskipper 3y ago
  That is like asking how could linux exist. Use your brain and imagine. We would likely have many more great fonts than we do today if you outlawed charging for them because people would no long have a protectionist mindset. It would be easy for people to modify existing ones so they worked better for various issues, and it wouldn't stop people creating beautiful new ones for whatever reason they wanted like art... or like linux. Sometimes the world works better without capitalism though that might be hard to believe.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    You are aware that Linux is in fact supported by commercial enterprises of various sizes all up and down the value chain, right? And yeah, it’s great that we happened upon a quasi-religious movement in software that has managed to align itself with commercial interests. OSS, in my opinion, will go down as one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Want to know why it’s such an achievement? Because it was profoundly unlikely and continues to be difficult in all sorts of ways. Question: What’s your job and your approximate hourly rate? Is it something that requires years or decades of training and do you charge $0?
    - anthonyskipper 3y ago
      Yes, I'm aware, but if none of those companies existed linux would still be doing great. Same way that if we made it so you couldn't charge for fonts the entire ecosystem would still be doing great. We don't need the rent seeking.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        So what do you do and what do you charge for it?

arh68 3y ago

How anyone can disagree with you is just bizarre. Don't like paid fonts? Don't use them. Don't think they're "meant to be IP" ? Too bad; they are. Don't think fonts matter ? Use Comic Sans MS the rest of your life, go ahead. If I develop a website for someone and pay for Oracle, that does not grant free Oracle licenses to everyone I hand my work off to. Why would anyone think that ? s/Oracle/OpenAI/g. s/Oracle/whatever you make money on/g. Just because one doesn't value the work of font creators doesn't mean the rest of us must commoditize their work. You might think there are huge networks of font pirates creating even-better fonts than those run-of-the-mill paid fonts, but it's just a fantasy.