3 ms·

> Desai: And so basically what these people decided is that if they let any individual company profit off of a barcode, then that would really be a huge impedim

> Desai: And so basically what these people decided is that if they let any individual company profit off of a barcode, then that would really be a huge impediment to this actually becoming universal. And obviously the whole idea of a universal product code is that it’s universal. So what they did is they chose seven finalists—seven companies—that would create a code in a way for it to be scanned, and none of these companies would get any sort of profits off of it. > They would all agree to put the code in the public domain, and they would all just, you know, basically make money by selling scanners. That was the idea. > Rosin: Wait. I just want to pause here. It’s, like, unimaginable. It seems completely logical when you explain it, that they should come up with a reason why this thing would be widely accepted, and that reason is sort of Marxist. What's that, American ignorant author's defining a standard? (Sorry, cannot help but think that anybody else would call that sort of idea "Marxist").

thwarted 3y ago
> They would all agree to put the code in the public domain, and they would all just, you know, basically make money by selling scanners. That was the idea. It's no different than giving away the razors to create demand for, and selling, the blades. Which is necessary in this case with intellectual property in order to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem of competing, non-interoperable standards that don't gain significant market share, no one uses, and thus no one makes money on. A code that can't be read by the scanner you have and a scanner that can't read a code you have is useless. Calling this Marxist makes little sense and reads like the author has an agenda. The following bit that referred to an "Elon Musk of barcodes" and inventors getting notoriety is pretty uniformed too.

thwarted 3y ago

> They would all agree to put the code in the public domain, and they would all just, you know, basically make money by selling scanners. That was the idea. It's no different than giving away the razors to create demand for, and selling, the blades. Which is necessary in this case with intellectual property in order to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem of competing, non-interoperable standards that don't gain significant market share, no one uses, and thus no one makes money on. A code that can't be read by the scanner you have and a scanner that can't read a code you have is useless. Calling this Marxist makes little sense and reads like the author has an agenda. The following bit that referred to an "Elon Musk of barcodes" and inventors getting notoriety is pretty uniformed too.