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> Or the legal and technical systems enforcing the contract? Both. > If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenien

by baddox 12y ago

> Or the legal and technical systems enforcing the contract? Both. > If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. Well, as you might have guessed by my references to contract law, I'm not a huge fan of statutory law. "Rule of law" is only good if the laws are good. > In other words "Yes, this action is illegal, but everyone does it anyway by necessity." If people want to modify their products, then that should be a competitive advantage for firms that offer products with terms allowing modification. > If it's both, then the technical methods for doing so become frightening pretty fast. Why?

ethbro 12y ago
>> If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. > Well, as you might have guessed by my references to contract law, I'm not a huge fan of statutory law. "Rule of law" is only good if the laws are good. > If people want to modify their products, then that should be a competitive advantage for firms that offer products with terms allowing modification. > Why? [do the technical methods for preventing modification become frightening] I'm getting the sense that we have fundamentally different opinions of the way the way the market works. In my view, it's entirely reasonable that the following chain of events unfolds: a) Company A builds product that prevents users from making modifications (legally and technically) b) The product captures a substantial market share (variety of means: maybe exclusive content, advertising, etc.) c) Because the product prevents users from making modifications, it can extract higher profit-per-user than competitors (by taking advantage of revenue streams unavailable to sellers of a more open product) d) Those higher profits can then be leveraged into a more dominant market position (regulatory capture, buying budding competitors, etc.) I have a feeling you would say "(b) would not happen because the market would correct in favor of consumers and away from Company A." My opinion is the market only self-stabilizes within certain bounds: once things get too out of whack, there is no guaranteed correction.

by baddox 12y ago

ethbro 12y ago

>> If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. > Well, as you might have guessed by my references to contract law, I'm not a huge fan of statutory law. "Rule of law" is only good if the laws are good. > If people want to modify their products, then that should be a competitive advantage for firms that offer products with terms allowing modification. > Why? [do the technical methods for preventing modification become frightening] I'm getting the sense that we have fundamentally different opinions of the way the way the market works. In my view, it's entirely reasonable that the following chain of events unfolds: a) Company A builds product that prevents users from making modifications (legally and technically) b) The product captures a substantial market share (variety of means: maybe exclusive content, advertising, etc.) c) Because the product prevents users from making modifications, it can extract higher profit-per-user than competitors (by taking advantage of revenue streams unavailable to sellers of a more open product) d) Those higher profits can then be leveraged into a more dominant market position (regulatory capture, buying budding competitors, etc.) I have a feeling you would say "(b) would not happen because the market would correct in favor of consumers and away from Company A." My opinion is the market only self-stabilizes within certain bounds: once things get too out of whack, there is no guaranteed correction.