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Wall Street will be disappointed. Prices for digital goods always have and will continue to be controlled by piracy. But given the choice between sparse and op

Wall Street will be disappointed. Prices for digital goods always have and will continue to be controlled by piracy. But given the choice between sparse and open ... and rich and closed If you've ever wondered why people with no speculative asset interests are so excited about Bitcoin it is because the technology has the potential to monetize digital goods. It also commoditizes identity and creates a rich and singular (yet decentralized and equal access) stream of digitally signed transactions and associated data. A public datastore. Rich and open. It spells out the death of privatized social media over the next decade. My theory is that once our communication mediums are again as rich and open as standing on the street corner and selling newsprint that our intellectual property industries will rebound and thrive yet again. Right now our dominant forums for discussion are privately owned. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and the rest aren't optimized for quality discussions. They can only quantify and measure in an attempt to subsidize the communication of the people who use their services. We need true public venues for a vibrant intellectual community!

nl 12y ago
My theory is that once our communication mediums are again as rich and open as standing on the street corner and selling newsprint that our intellectual property industries will rebound and thrive yet again. It's never been cheaper to self publish, either by a blog (self hosted if you choose) or in an ebook. How is selling newsprint on a corner more rich and open that that? You had to own a printing press to have a voice!
- williamcotton 12y ago
  I'm not talking about price. I'm talking about the fact that it was a public venue. Your self-hosted blog is basically like standing in your own private living room and selling your newspaper. Facebook is like a private indoor shopping mall with no guarantees for free speech. The only way to be heard on the Internet is to go over to someone's private property and hope that they'll let you inside to talk. A consensus database that is replicated completely across all nodes acts more like a public square than anything we've seen before on the Internet.
  - maratd 12y ago
    > A consensus database that is replicated completely across all nodes acts more like a public square than anything we've seen before on the Internet. Gnutella. 15 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnutella http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnutella
    - williamcotton 12y ago
      But Gnutella, Bittorrent, and Freenet are all ephemeral. Data stored with these service cannot be reliable retrieved.
      - maratd 12y ago
        > But Gnutella, Bittorrent, and Freenet are all ephemeral. and > A consensus database ... Yup. If the database isn't ephemeral, it can't be a consensus database. If it's the consensus that certain data should disappear, then it should disappear. If you force retention, it's no longer a consensus database.
        williamcotton 12y ago
        If you force retention, it's no longer a consensus database. Expecting data the has been publicly broadcast to be capable of being erased from existence is a lost cause. A better solution is to embrace the permanence of publication. The Way-back Machine watches all. The solution is much like with git. Append a delete or a subtraction to the chain. Software in userland can then make it appear as if though edits or deletions have been made.

nl 12y ago

My theory is that once our communication mediums are again as rich and open as standing on the street corner and selling newsprint that our intellectual property industries will rebound and thrive yet again. It's never been cheaper to self publish, either by a blog (self hosted if you choose) or in an ebook. How is selling newsprint on a corner more rich and open that that? You had to own a printing press to have a voice!

williamcotton 12y ago
I'm not talking about price. I'm talking about the fact that it was a public venue. Your self-hosted blog is basically like standing in your own private living room and selling your newspaper. Facebook is like a private indoor shopping mall with no guarantees for free speech. The only way to be heard on the Internet is to go over to someone's private property and hope that they'll let you inside to talk. A consensus database that is replicated completely across all nodes acts more like a public square than anything we've seen before on the Internet.
- maratd 12y ago
  > A consensus database that is replicated completely across all nodes acts more like a public square than anything we've seen before on the Internet. Gnutella. 15 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnutella http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnutella
  - williamcotton 12y ago
    But Gnutella, Bittorrent, and Freenet are all ephemeral. Data stored with these service cannot be reliable retrieved.
    - maratd 12y ago
      > But Gnutella, Bittorrent, and Freenet are all ephemeral. and > A consensus database ... Yup. If the database isn't ephemeral, it can't be a consensus database. If it's the consensus that certain data should disappear, then it should disappear. If you force retention, it's no longer a consensus database.
      - williamcotton 12y ago
        If you force retention, it's no longer a consensus database. Expecting data the has been publicly broadcast to be capable of being erased from existence is a lost cause. A better solution is to embrace the permanence of publication. The Way-back Machine watches all. The solution is much like with git. Append a delete or a subtraction to the chain. Software in userland can then make it appear as if though edits or deletions have been made.