6 ms·

I just don't understand the culture of free. On one hand, everything digital is expected for free (or close to it). Even app prices have gone so low, that the

I just don't understand the culture of free. On one hand, everything digital is expected for free (or close to it). Even app prices have gone so low, that the majority of app developers would never be able to earn a living. On the other, lots of hate for big corporations and further complaining when jobs go away (one of the direct results of the free culture). The ability to make a living online makes it so you don't ever have to work for a large corporation. The ultimate freedom. I know plenty of independent artists that can't really make a living with music anymore because albums are now essentially worthless. Many of these people are now forced to sell out to big corporate record labels (and then, the same people that created this environment call them "sellouts").

IndianAstronaut 12y ago
It enriches our lives though. While free goods cannot be measured in terms of GDP, it makes us all better off. It also brings that enrichment to a much wider audience than would be if it had a pay barrier.
- drcube 12y ago
  Yeah. The main benefit of digital technology is the ability to copy and transmit data freely. Nobody complains when the email I sent is still sitting in a folder in my mailbox. I don't have to hand write a second copy for my own records. This is progress. It's the same as buggy whip makers complaining that automobiles put them out of a job. Only in this century, the buggy whip manufacturers have a much larger and louder lobby.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    If commercial content had been made obsolete by people using cheap production technology to put their own original content on Youtube, etc, then you might have a point. That'd be the internet's automobile to the big labels' buggy whip. But people don't want indie content, they still want the buggy whips. Technology just enables them to get the buggy whips for free instead of paying for them.
    - selmnoo 12y ago
      > That'd be the internet's automobile to the big labels' buggy whip. But people don't want indie content, they still want the buggy whips. I generally want indie content to get a large user audience, I don't want the "buggy whips" people ostensibly are interested in to gain as much of a user audience, that is, things like, Anaconda, Wrecking Ball, Blurred Lines are supposedly what people want, I'd rather they not. A friend of mine who had been playing the viola since age 6, took his craft extremely seriously, and played for about 10 years with an orchestra, recently decided he was done with it, he's not able to pay his bills. He's one of the nicest guys I know, it was depressing to see him finally resign. While our industry is rebuked for sexism, we see Eminem succeed again and again by repeatedly talking about raping, assaulting women in his songs, it's kind of disgusting really that this has sort of become his trademark marketing and branding strategy[1]. It bugs me that beautiful art perfected over generations is lost and left aside to shit made by producers with commercialization more on top of their mind. I want to see the music industry to really just come to its knees (when I mean music industry, I actually really mean just the big record labels). I want it to become an unprofitable business, where it doesn't have much of a value, because that might be the last thing that deters record companies to stop making stuff that's formulaic and trite, using cheap misogynistic tricks and so on. Maybe then we can get back to having a piano or a guitar in the house, and making music ourselves, with friends and families. [1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/12/how-eminem-peddles-misogyny-as-a-tool-to-sell-records/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/12...
    - chongli 12y ago
      It is being made obsolete. Just look at the last 10 years. Cable subscriptions are way down. Youtube views are way up. But people don't want indie content Absolutely not true.
  - freshhawk 12y ago
    The postal service feels the same way about email as the media companies feel about digital files. But everyone laughs at their complaints or proposals to tax email. As a society we no longer have to waste huge amounts of resources to make physical copies of information and deliver them around the world. This is an enormous benefit to society. It's staggering. All that wasted resources and time are now available to be used more productively. It shows you who welcomes progress and who only pays it lip service. I really really hope we find a killer alternative energy source and infrastructure before I die. I will get to laugh my ass off at the insane fact distortion that arises. The loud arguments against these awful crimes against the noble oilmen and brave tanker captains who are struggling. How, oh how, will the pious House of Saud control their rebellious slave worker population with their income being stolen from them by this entitled Culture of Free!
    - rayiner 12y ago
      We never spent all that much resources making physical copies of information and sending it around--or at least, that cost has always paled in comparison to the cost of generating that information in the first place. Which is precisely why your energy analogy is inapposite. The Saudis didn't invent oil--they just trade in its scarcity. But digital technology doesn't address the scarcity of information and original content. Someone still has to create the first copy, and as ever, that's the hard part.
      - chongli 12y ago
        The cost of generating the information has also gone down by orders of magnitude. You no longer need a multi-million dollar TV studio to produce content for an audience of millions; all you need is a webcam and a youtube account.
        rayiner 12y ago
        Production budgets for AAA content are higher than ever, and the "webcam and a youtube account" segment has been supplementing rather than competing with those AAA products.
wyager 12y ago
You're arguing "What's good for consumers is bad for producers, so why are consumers doing it?". The answer is that consumers, in aggregate, don't care about producers. In general, people are self-interested. There is no contradiction here. > when jobs go away (one of the direct results of the free culture). This doesn't make any sense. If people are spending less money on one thing, they are spending more money on something else. If I pirate all my music, maybe I have an extra $100/year to go out to dinner, "creating jobs" (although I am loath to use that misleading phrase) in the culinary industry. In reality, of course, those $100 are spread across a whole bunch of areas of spending, but the aggregate effect is the same.
lbrandy 12y ago
> Many of these people are now forced to sell out to big corporate record labels... Mostly look at the word "now". At what time did musicians not need to "sell out" to "big corporate" record labels?
Mithaldu 12y ago
I can give you a better perspective from gaming, since it was much more onerous for that to become nice, but it has already solved the problem. Games tend, on average, to be on average about the size of a whole, uncompressed CD. Roughly 700 MB. That means the first challenge is actually getting the thing to me. For a while i had two options: Either i could go out into the store, and buy it there (spending 2 hours + cash), or if they didn't have it, order it and come back later (another 2 hours). Or i could torrent it at home, spending no cash and 2 hours waiting for the download to complete while i do other things; and live with the possible risk of a letter from my ISP. So now i have the thing. The next challenge is to get it on the computer and running. With the store-bought medium i have to hope that it is physically sound, and i need to ensure it stays that way; I also have to hope that my drive is compatible with their copy protection; and to add insult to injury, i need to keep the disc in my drive to play it, meaning i have to handle the things a lot, and have my drive uselessly make noise. With the torrent, i unpack it and install it, maybe needing to spend an extra 5 minutes to find the right crack; and live with the risk of contracting malware. And the last issue: Software updates. This time the two options are almost the same: Find the latest update, download and install it. Torrent updates come with a risk of malware again. Now, when i was young specifically the first and second thing led me to pirate most of the games i got. Not because i didn't want to spend the cash; but because i didn't want to spend cash, just to have to spend my own time to get the thing and live with the constant annoyance of keeping the right disc in my drive, constantly rotating. This is especially borne out in current times. Steam is now here and while the prices are similar to physical game sales (the value of my steam library is estimated at $7000), i gladly and happily spend the money for it, since Steam solves these problems: 1. Games are downloadable. 2. The copy protection is either my online status, or a specific steam token. (In practice i've never not been able to access the games.) 3. Updates come automatically. 4. As long as Steam doesn't crash and burn, i'll be able to access the things i bought in perpetuity without needing to cat herd a gaggle of physical storages. The "culture of free" doesn't revolve around free. There is a cost in any "free". Usually the risk of legal action or malware. The "culture of free" is winning because people hoping to make money fail to provide solutions that actually address customers' needs. Steam has recognized and solved that issue. In the music industry things like Google Play Music, Spotify, etc. are starting to solve it.
digi_owl 12y ago
You are looking at perhaps the central paradox of capitalism. As workers we want as much pay as we can for as little effort as we can, while as consumers we want as much goods as we can for as little expense as we can.

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

It enriches our lives though. While free goods cannot be measured in terms of GDP, it makes us all better off. It also brings that enrichment to a much wider audience than would be if it had a pay barrier.

drcube 12y ago
Yeah. The main benefit of digital technology is the ability to copy and transmit data freely. Nobody complains when the email I sent is still sitting in a folder in my mailbox. I don't have to hand write a second copy for my own records. This is progress. It's the same as buggy whip makers complaining that automobiles put them out of a job. Only in this century, the buggy whip manufacturers have a much larger and louder lobby.
- rayiner 12y ago
  If commercial content had been made obsolete by people using cheap production technology to put their own original content on Youtube, etc, then you might have a point. That'd be the internet's automobile to the big labels' buggy whip. But people don't want indie content, they still want the buggy whips. Technology just enables them to get the buggy whips for free instead of paying for them.
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    > That'd be the internet's automobile to the big labels' buggy whip. But people don't want indie content, they still want the buggy whips. I generally want indie content to get a large user audience, I don't want the "buggy whips" people ostensibly are interested in to gain as much of a user audience, that is, things like, Anaconda, Wrecking Ball, Blurred Lines are supposedly what people want, I'd rather they not. A friend of mine who had been playing the viola since age 6, took his craft extremely seriously, and played for about 10 years with an orchestra, recently decided he was done with it, he's not able to pay his bills. He's one of the nicest guys I know, it was depressing to see him finally resign. While our industry is rebuked for sexism, we see Eminem succeed again and again by repeatedly talking about raping, assaulting women in his songs, it's kind of disgusting really that this has sort of become his trademark marketing and branding strategy[1]. It bugs me that beautiful art perfected over generations is lost and left aside to shit made by producers with commercialization more on top of their mind. I want to see the music industry to really just come to its knees (when I mean music industry, I actually really mean just the big record labels). I want it to become an unprofitable business, where it doesn't have much of a value, because that might be the last thing that deters record companies to stop making stuff that's formulaic and trite, using cheap misogynistic tricks and so on. Maybe then we can get back to having a piano or a guitar in the house, and making music ourselves, with friends and families. [1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/12/how-eminem-peddles-misogyny-as-a-tool-to-sell-records/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/12...
  - chongli 12y ago
    It is being made obsolete. Just look at the last 10 years. Cable subscriptions are way down. Youtube views are way up. But people don't want indie content Absolutely not true.
- freshhawk 12y ago
  The postal service feels the same way about email as the media companies feel about digital files. But everyone laughs at their complaints or proposals to tax email. As a society we no longer have to waste huge amounts of resources to make physical copies of information and deliver them around the world. This is an enormous benefit to society. It's staggering. All that wasted resources and time are now available to be used more productively. It shows you who welcomes progress and who only pays it lip service. I really really hope we find a killer alternative energy source and infrastructure before I die. I will get to laugh my ass off at the insane fact distortion that arises. The loud arguments against these awful crimes against the noble oilmen and brave tanker captains who are struggling. How, oh how, will the pious House of Saud control their rebellious slave worker population with their income being stolen from them by this entitled Culture of Free!
  - rayiner 12y ago
    We never spent all that much resources making physical copies of information and sending it around--or at least, that cost has always paled in comparison to the cost of generating that information in the first place. Which is precisely why your energy analogy is inapposite. The Saudis didn't invent oil--they just trade in its scarcity. But digital technology doesn't address the scarcity of information and original content. Someone still has to create the first copy, and as ever, that's the hard part.
    - chongli 12y ago
      The cost of generating the information has also gone down by orders of magnitude. You no longer need a multi-million dollar TV studio to produce content for an audience of millions; all you need is a webcam and a youtube account.
      - rayiner 12y ago
        Production budgets for AAA content are higher than ever, and the "webcam and a youtube account" segment has been supplementing rather than competing with those AAA products.

wyager 12y ago

You're arguing "What's good for consumers is bad for producers, so why are consumers doing it?". The answer is that consumers, in aggregate, don't care about producers. In general, people are self-interested. There is no contradiction here. > when jobs go away (one of the direct results of the free culture). This doesn't make any sense. If people are spending less money on one thing, they are spending more money on something else. If I pirate all my music, maybe I have an extra $100/year to go out to dinner, "creating jobs" (although I am loath to use that misleading phrase) in the culinary industry. In reality, of course, those $100 are spread across a whole bunch of areas of spending, but the aggregate effect is the same.

lbrandy 12y ago

> Many of these people are now forced to sell out to big corporate record labels... Mostly look at the word "now". At what time did musicians not need to "sell out" to "big corporate" record labels?

Mithaldu 12y ago

I can give you a better perspective from gaming, since it was much more onerous for that to become nice, but it has already solved the problem. Games tend, on average, to be on average about the size of a whole, uncompressed CD. Roughly 700 MB. That means the first challenge is actually getting the thing to me. For a while i had two options: Either i could go out into the store, and buy it there (spending 2 hours + cash), or if they didn't have it, order it and come back later (another 2 hours). Or i could torrent it at home, spending no cash and 2 hours waiting for the download to complete while i do other things; and live with the possible risk of a letter from my ISP. So now i have the thing. The next challenge is to get it on the computer and running. With the store-bought medium i have to hope that it is physically sound, and i need to ensure it stays that way; I also have to hope that my drive is compatible with their copy protection; and to add insult to injury, i need to keep the disc in my drive to play it, meaning i have to handle the things a lot, and have my drive uselessly make noise. With the torrent, i unpack it and install it, maybe needing to spend an extra 5 minutes to find the right crack; and live with the risk of contracting malware. And the last issue: Software updates. This time the two options are almost the same: Find the latest update, download and install it. Torrent updates come with a risk of malware again. Now, when i was young specifically the first and second thing led me to pirate most of the games i got. Not because i didn't want to spend the cash; but because i didn't want to spend cash, just to have to spend my own time to get the thing and live with the constant annoyance of keeping the right disc in my drive, constantly rotating. This is especially borne out in current times. Steam is now here and while the prices are similar to physical game sales (the value of my steam library is estimated at $7000), i gladly and happily spend the money for it, since Steam solves these problems: 1. Games are downloadable. 2. The copy protection is either my online status, or a specific steam token. (In practice i've never not been able to access the games.) 3. Updates come automatically. 4. As long as Steam doesn't crash and burn, i'll be able to access the things i bought in perpetuity without needing to cat herd a gaggle of physical storages. The "culture of free" doesn't revolve around free. There is a cost in any "free". Usually the risk of legal action or malware. The "culture of free" is winning because people hoping to make money fail to provide solutions that actually address customers' needs. Steam has recognized and solved that issue. In the music industry things like Google Play Music, Spotify, etc. are starting to solve it.

digi_owl 12y ago

You are looking at perhaps the central paradox of capitalism. As workers we want as much pay as we can for as little effort as we can, while as consumers we want as much goods as we can for as little expense as we can.