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And this is why "vote with your wallet" does not work. As a consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money. In fact, even the people who made the game (d

And this is why "vote with your wallet" does not work. As a consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money. In fact, even the people who made the game (did the actual work, not managers, advertisers, etc.) don't get to decide. Correct me if I am wrong but the programmers, designers, artists have already been paid and any money from sales goes to the company and its execs/shareholders. (And yes, employees can also be shareholders but they almost always own such a tiny share it does not really matter. In a just world, ownership would be distributed automatically according to time_worked * skill_level.) EDIT: I might have overstated by saying it doesn't work but it definitely doesn't have the same level of effect as people collectively saying "this behavior is wrong and you will be punished for it, regardless if I buy the product" (for example by editing laws). It also doesn't allow any control over how the money is distributed among those who worked on it (compared to for example adding a law that limits absolute/relative spending on marketing - whether you think it's a good idea or not).

skotobaza 1y ago
> and any money from sales goes to the company and its execs/shareholders Some companies may share a profit. I heard that Activision used to pay some of the revenue from Call of Duty to the developers, although I can't confirm it. And it was a long time ago, not sure if they still do.
__MatrixMan__ 1y ago
It would work if we dispensed with intellectual property and instead voted on what should be created rather than on what already has.
- martin-t 1y ago
  I hear this argument with some regularity and i don't think it would work the way you expect. Have you gamed it out in your head? 1) A lot of people would immediately stop contributing to open source. In fact i ahead have because ML is being used to launder my work to use it without resourcing my licenses. Same with any other area where people share their work for free. It would all be monetized by those with access to better advertising. 2) Anything published would be immediately scooped up by the big players. How would a small competitor like Nebula compete with YouTube if YouTube took all its content and offered it for free with ads? 3) How would you even know who the original creator was if those stealing the work stripped away attribution? They already do but at least you have some limited ways to fight them.
  - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
    1) I contribute to open source because I want the thing to exist. I use open licenses because I don't want anybody to use the law to deny anybody else access to it. If we gut the parts of the law by which others would deny access, I no longer have to worry about licensing, but my original motivated is untouched. 2) what do you mean "scooped up"? What's to stop a small platform from providing the same content that a large platform does, if we've done away with intellectual property? 3) I'm confused. If you're paying somebody to create a proposed work, and then they create it and get paid for doing so, and then nobody is allowed to restrict access to it, where does the theft come in?
    - throw3141592 1y ago
      1) So you are perfectly happy with somebody else taking over, taking your code, giving it a different name, or not even that, spending a bit of money on advertisement to get more users than you, adding features to drag over your users, then taking development private and enshittifying it? EEE? You have to understand in this world, advertising and network effects are much stronger than building a good product. 2) Again, advertising, cost of storage, having a better (meaning more addiction inducing) algorithm, etc. 3) You said it yourself, people have to create something first (which will be stolen or as you phrase it, unrestricted) so they can prove themselves so that anybody pays them to produce the next thing. Or would you pay a random guy with no credentials and no portfolio claiming he can create what you want? Or what if somebody creates something really good but it's a one off. He changes hobbies, has children, has to care for an elderly parent, ... and doesn't have time to create more. Should he not get paid for the value of his existing work? Your take basically means people will only get paid as long as more value can be extracted from them and then they're no longer economically viable so screw them.
      - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
        1&2) its not my code, its just code that I wrote. The enshittification problem goes away if anybody can fork it and make a less enshittified version. We could have--brace yourself for this radical concept--competition over who could make a better thing. All the bad things you're saying will happen if we don't assert ownership over data are in fact only happening because we assert ownership over data. Somebody else owning the solution to our problems is why we tolerate such abuse. Otherwise we could cut out the abuse parts and solve the problem directly. 3) I was unspecific about how much money they'd get ahead of time versus upon completion because I figure that ought to be a case-by-case thing. The idea that people should be able to live well based on having done good work in the past is a good one. Let's make that happen, but why should it have anything to do with property? If I build a particularly strong bridge which surpasses expectations re: longevity shouldn't I get the same retroactive compensation as somebody who wrote a particularly good book? If I publish freely the cure for a disease, should society not reward me to a greater extent than if I sold the patent to a company that will decline to act on the discovery because it's more profitable to treat that disease than to cure it? The things you seem to want from intellectual property are important, but pushing the concept of property beyond what is natural for it is a harmful way to achieve them. A) its not working particularly well for the artists B) its not working at all for workers outside that domain C) it has all kinds of really awful side effects which are far more harmful than whatever good we can reasonably expect it (property) to do. When IP was invented to justify the church's right to prevent the wrong kind of bible from being printed we didn't have the ability to implement the alternatives that are available to us today. The best we could do is play-by-the-rules-or-we'll-take-your-printer. We have new capabilities now, let's solve these problems head on instead of leaning on ideas from the 1600's to do so.
9rx 1y ago
> And this is why "vote with your wallet does not work". As a consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money. Huh? That doesn't make any sense. "Vote your wallet" does not mean throw money on the ground haphazardly and pray that it finds its way to the appropriate home. It means hand the money directly to the person you want to have it. There is no way to avoid deciding who gets the money. That's the only choice you get to make.
tbrockman 1y ago
Please don't try to spread the idea that it "does not work", it's incorrect and discourages one of the most effective non-violent mechanisms consumers have for driving change in market economies. It may not necessarily be sufficient (coordinated boycotts, for instance, are much more effective than individual decisions), it may not always be an option (particularly when there aren't viable alternatives), it may not work immediately, there may not be enough people who "vote" a certain way, and there may be insufficient information to make informed decisions--but consumers absolutely decide which products and companies live and die, and every single dollar you spend allocates power.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
Target's CEO saw a significant impact to their compensation, a change in role, and ~1800 layoffs occurred because of the Target boycott. Boycotts work. Voting with your wallet works. https://rollingout.com/2025/05/07/target-ceo-salary-drop-amid-boycott/ https://rollingout.com/2025/05/07/target-ceo-salary-drop-ami... https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/08/21/the-quiet-part-out-loud-target-ditching-dei-cost-the-ceo-his-job-and-investors-12-billion/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/08/21/the-qui... > The Quiet Part Out Loud: Target Ditching DEI Cost The CEO His Job And Investors $12 Billion So, it would not be hard to impair Rockstar with a coordinated, sustained economic retaliation campaign against them. If it kills the company, we help workers find other jobs and shareholders learn a lesson about capital allocation. Poorly run companies die all the time, some just need to be helped along.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  See also Disney+ and Jimmy Kimmel. Something like 2 million subs were dropped.

skotobaza 1y ago

> and any money from sales goes to the company and its execs/shareholders Some companies may share a profit. I heard that Activision used to pay some of the revenue from Call of Duty to the developers, although I can't confirm it. And it was a long time ago, not sure if they still do.

__MatrixMan__ 1y ago

It would work if we dispensed with intellectual property and instead voted on what should be created rather than on what already has.

martin-t 1y ago
I hear this argument with some regularity and i don't think it would work the way you expect. Have you gamed it out in your head? 1) A lot of people would immediately stop contributing to open source. In fact i ahead have because ML is being used to launder my work to use it without resourcing my licenses. Same with any other area where people share their work for free. It would all be monetized by those with access to better advertising. 2) Anything published would be immediately scooped up by the big players. How would a small competitor like Nebula compete with YouTube if YouTube took all its content and offered it for free with ads? 3) How would you even know who the original creator was if those stealing the work stripped away attribution? They already do but at least you have some limited ways to fight them.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
  1) I contribute to open source because I want the thing to exist. I use open licenses because I don't want anybody to use the law to deny anybody else access to it. If we gut the parts of the law by which others would deny access, I no longer have to worry about licensing, but my original motivated is untouched. 2) what do you mean "scooped up"? What's to stop a small platform from providing the same content that a large platform does, if we've done away with intellectual property? 3) I'm confused. If you're paying somebody to create a proposed work, and then they create it and get paid for doing so, and then nobody is allowed to restrict access to it, where does the theft come in?
  - throw3141592 1y ago
    1) So you are perfectly happy with somebody else taking over, taking your code, giving it a different name, or not even that, spending a bit of money on advertisement to get more users than you, adding features to drag over your users, then taking development private and enshittifying it? EEE? You have to understand in this world, advertising and network effects are much stronger than building a good product. 2) Again, advertising, cost of storage, having a better (meaning more addiction inducing) algorithm, etc. 3) You said it yourself, people have to create something first (which will be stolen or as you phrase it, unrestricted) so they can prove themselves so that anybody pays them to produce the next thing. Or would you pay a random guy with no credentials and no portfolio claiming he can create what you want? Or what if somebody creates something really good but it's a one off. He changes hobbies, has children, has to care for an elderly parent, ... and doesn't have time to create more. Should he not get paid for the value of his existing work? Your take basically means people will only get paid as long as more value can be extracted from them and then they're no longer economically viable so screw them.
    - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
      1&2) its not my code, its just code that I wrote. The enshittification problem goes away if anybody can fork it and make a less enshittified version. We could have--brace yourself for this radical concept--competition over who could make a better thing. All the bad things you're saying will happen if we don't assert ownership over data are in fact only happening because we assert ownership over data. Somebody else owning the solution to our problems is why we tolerate such abuse. Otherwise we could cut out the abuse parts and solve the problem directly. 3) I was unspecific about how much money they'd get ahead of time versus upon completion because I figure that ought to be a case-by-case thing. The idea that people should be able to live well based on having done good work in the past is a good one. Let's make that happen, but why should it have anything to do with property? If I build a particularly strong bridge which surpasses expectations re: longevity shouldn't I get the same retroactive compensation as somebody who wrote a particularly good book? If I publish freely the cure for a disease, should society not reward me to a greater extent than if I sold the patent to a company that will decline to act on the discovery because it's more profitable to treat that disease than to cure it? The things you seem to want from intellectual property are important, but pushing the concept of property beyond what is natural for it is a harmful way to achieve them. A) its not working particularly well for the artists B) its not working at all for workers outside that domain C) it has all kinds of really awful side effects which are far more harmful than whatever good we can reasonably expect it (property) to do. When IP was invented to justify the church's right to prevent the wrong kind of bible from being printed we didn't have the ability to implement the alternatives that are available to us today. The best we could do is play-by-the-rules-or-we'll-take-your-printer. We have new capabilities now, let's solve these problems head on instead of leaning on ideas from the 1600's to do so.

9rx 1y ago

> And this is why "vote with your wallet does not work". As a consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money. Huh? That doesn't make any sense. "Vote your wallet" does not mean throw money on the ground haphazardly and pray that it finds its way to the appropriate home. It means hand the money directly to the person you want to have it. There is no way to avoid deciding who gets the money. That's the only choice you get to make.

tbrockman 1y ago

Please don't try to spread the idea that it "does not work", it's incorrect and discourages one of the most effective non-violent mechanisms consumers have for driving change in market economies. It may not necessarily be sufficient (coordinated boycotts, for instance, are much more effective than individual decisions), it may not always be an option (particularly when there aren't viable alternatives), it may not work immediately, there may not be enough people who "vote" a certain way, and there may be insufficient information to make informed decisions--but consumers absolutely decide which products and companies live and die, and every single dollar you spend allocates power.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

Target's CEO saw a significant impact to their compensation, a change in role, and ~1800 layoffs occurred because of the Target boycott. Boycotts work. Voting with your wallet works. https://rollingout.com/2025/05/07/target-ceo-salary-drop-amid-boycott/ https://rollingout.com/2025/05/07/target-ceo-salary-drop-ami... https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/08/21/the-quiet-part-out-loud-target-ditching-dei-cost-the-ceo-his-job-and-investors-12-billion/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/08/21/the-qui... > The Quiet Part Out Loud: Target Ditching DEI Cost The CEO His Job And Investors $12 Billion So, it would not be hard to impair Rockstar with a coordinated, sustained economic retaliation campaign against them. If it kills the company, we help workers find other jobs and shareholders learn a lesson about capital allocation. Poorly run companies die all the time, some just need to be helped along.

_DeadFred_ 1y ago
See also Disney+ and Jimmy Kimmel. Something like 2 million subs were dropped.