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To play the devil's advocate, why should the authors be paid in perpetuity for a job that they did only once? If a sculptor demanded to be paid every time that
by ori_b 17y ago
To play the devil's advocate, why should the authors be paid in perpetuity for a job that they did only once?
If a sculptor demanded to be paid every time that someone looked at his sculpture, people would think he was slightly crazy. Generally, when people create something, they are paid for the act of creation, and not for the use of what they created. I don't see why this can't be the case for, say, music as well?
Ok, I admit I don't have a viable proposal for a business model at the moment, but the assumption that creators should be paid per use of their creation, instead of for the act of creation itself, seems flawed to me.
- henriklied 17y agoYou _do_ have a point, but by your reasoning, the business model for most web apps is also flawed. Is e.g. 37signals' business model flawed? Should they not be able to charge for use?
- ori_b 17y agoMost web apps are hosted on infrastructure that costs money to maintain, and can't be easily be duplicated. When you pay for that, you're not paying for a product, you're paying for a service. It's analogous the difference between buying a lawn mower (where you're paying the company for a one-time act of producing a lawn mower), or paying someone to come by every week and cut your grass. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the software-as-a-service model, but there is a difference.