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" I bet Stallman's projects, and the free software movement itself, are responsible for the non-existence of numerous jobs." No question about that. As someone
by larrys 12y ago
" I bet Stallman's projects, and the free software movement itself, are responsible for the non-existence of numerous jobs."
No question about that. As someone who back in the day paid thousands for business software that is now almost always free, money went from our company to a company that had employees, sales people, programmers who made a living off the software that was being offered. Not to mention obviously the people that we didn't need anymore as a result of that software. (Bookeepers, anyone?)
- xsmasher 12y agoThat sounds remarkably like the broken window fallacy. What does your company do with that extra money now? Throw it in a barrel and burn it?
- dllthomas 12y agoWhat are Uber and passengers going to do with the extra money? In both cases, we see the loss of specific jobs and (at least) short term pain for the people who were relying on them.
- xsmasher 12y agoRight; short term pain while the money is redistributed to somewhere it can be of more efficient use. The parent made it sound like the loss of jobs was going to collapse the economy.
- dllthomas 12y ago"Right; short term pain while the money is redistributed to somewhere it can be of more efficient use." Right. Which isn't to say we shouldn't be considering it. The short term matters - we spend a lot of time there. "The parent made it sound like the loss of jobs was going to collapse the economy." Well, there's nothing to say the money is redistributed to labor, and it's hard to run a consumer economy when only a few people have any money to pay for anything. That said, I don't really get that vibe from the parent comment in the first place...