6 ms·

The Price of Free

37 points by bootload 17y ago

memetichazard 17y ago
I'm getting a little bit annoyed with the argument that 'Internet taking over these businesses is BAD because it's replacing quality with quantity! You won't get quality anymore because people are flocking to quantity and we can't afford to subsidize it anymore!' On one hand, I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument (Research seems to be funded at least partially in the same way at universities), but overall, if the great masses lack taste and are satisfied with their reality TV, books like Twilight, and Windows PCs, why should they be taxed to pay for the few aristocrats that demand literature? Or, if the value of such things is great enough, then the demand will be there to pay for it. Disclaimer: My OS is Vista, I like watching CSI, and I've liked books that are as empty as Twilight is rumored to be.
- camccann 17y ago
  Well, there's at least one perspective (accurate or not) from which your point doesn't hold. As a hypothetical, assume that perception of quality within a domain is actually a trained skill, improved by incremental refinement via new experiences within the domain. Further, assume that highly-trained individuals can perceive greater detail, and from that can derive greater enjoyment. That is, a novice is overwhelmed by a few of the most obvious features, whereas an expert picks out subtleties and contrasts and has a richer, more enjoyable experience (there may be a parallel here to the blub paradox). Under such a scenario, most novices (being unable to perceive subtleties) would tend to congregate around only a few examples in the domain that happen to provide the best experience at the broad, obvious level; a local maximum of enjoyment. However, by persuading a novice to experience additional examples that at the obvious levels may seem less appealing, they will gain both expertise and a deeper enjoyment of the domain, at the expense of growing bored with the simpler examples that lack subtleties. New creations in the domain seeking to maximize exposure would tend to the minimum complexity level needed to appeal to a sufficiently large portion of the population. Lower complexity means fewer people expanding their experiences, reducing the overall level of expertise, lowering the minimum, and so on. Given the assumption earlier that experts obtain greater enjoyment from the domain, this results in a globally suboptimal outcome from individually sensible choices. Of course, a fair number of people would disagree with one or both of the assumptions above (myself included). But I suspect many people who bemoan loss of quality would to some extent agree with the scenario I described, wherein quality is indeed valuable without there being demand for it.
  - m_eiman 17y ago
    wherein quality is indeed valuable without there being demand for it Value is derived from demand and supply. If there is no demand, there can be no value. If there is demand, there will be value (per supplied unit) if the supply isn't too plentiful. This should mean that, in your example, entry level content should be plentiful and cheap, while the advanced content should be scarce and expensive. Hopefully for the producers of advanced content, the advanced audience will get so much more enjoyment per unit of content that they feel the higher price is justified. To say that more people "should" go through the effort of learning to like the advanced content is pretty elitist, but most of all it doesn't take into consideration everything that they are doing in their lives. Just because some college students think it's worthwhile to learn the intricacies of some obscure tv series it doesn't mean that it's worthwhile for everyone else.
    - gloob 17y ago
      Value is derived from demand and supply. I suspect that the post you are responding to disagrees with this (at least hypothetically). They contend that value is a more-or-less innate quality that the skilled are best at recognizing. Stating your position baldly isn't a particularly strong counterargument. To say that more people "should" go through the effort of learning to like the advanced content is pretty elitist Doesn't matter whether it's elitist, in the same way that it doesn't matter whether Darwin caused the Holocaust. The fact that the consequences are unpleasant does not mean that the assertion is untrue.
      - m_eiman 17y ago
        They contend that value is a more-or-less innate quality that the skilled are best at recognizing. Stating your position baldly isn't a particularly strong counterargument. Value, in the money sense, is what someone is prepared to pay. That's the kind of value I was referring to. Doesn't matter whether it's elitist, in the same way that it doesn't matter whether Darwin caused the Holocaust. Godwin's law. The fact that the consequences are unpleasant does not mean that the assertion is untrue. You ignored the second part of my conclusion: everyone has limited time, and they have to select a subset of what is possible that they will actually do. Also: the post I was responding to was talking about trying to maximize global enjoyment, and proposed that if everyone decided to become experts in a single narrow field of content everyone would be better off. This, however, is also unlikely to find the global maximum. How will everyone know which tiny subfield has the biggest potential for enjoyment? Without trying a lot of different routes to enjoyment, it's very unlikely that they will choose the best one by pure chance. Compare this to genetic algorithms; you need randomness to escape a local maximum. Another problem with the proposed solution is that different people have different personalities and it's very unlikely that a single narrow field will appeal to everyone. Some subset of the population will get lots of enjoyment, while another subset will be bored to tears. That's not going to improve average enjoyment.
- credo 17y ago
  I think you may be assuming a distinction that isn't there. If (as the article seems to suggest) consumers can get high-value programs as well as low-value programs for the same "free" price , the value of the program isn't going to matter too much from a revenue perspective (for the program producer). That will result in the end of high-value programs that are expensive to produce. It won't be the first time that people make short-term decisions that hurt them in the long-term
  - rabidsnail 17y ago
    If there isn't a market for high-value programs that are expensive to produce, at a price greater than free, then those programs are by definition not high-value.
    - credo 17y ago
      That depends on your definition of "high-value" Hypothetically, an individual may consider a video to be high-value. Yet, if the video is pirated and if most people see the video without paying anything to the video-maker, the video-maker may stop making these videos. Now, from a monetary perspective, your comment may make sense. Because of piracy, the video-maker did not make a lot of money from the video. However, I would still consider the hypothetical video to be high-value.
steveklabnik 17y ago
Once again, this article assumes that the current way of doing things is the only way of doing things. New business models will spring up. They always do, no matter how much people decry progress.
- jmtulloss 17y ago
  The article's not entirely without merit. It's true that new business models will pop up, but will they be as profitable as the current one? Considering the democratizing effect of the internet, I doubt it. The same thing is happening with the music industry. Just because the record labels see a clear pattern towards electronic consumption doesn't mean that clinging to the old model as long as possible isn't the most profitable strategy.
  - Daishiman 17y ago
    Sure, it's not going to be as profitable. So what? As long as there is profit to be made someone will step up to the plate.
    - irrelative 17y ago
      The existing players rarely try to innovate within their own field. As you say, someone will step up to the plate, which will allow existing players to buy the new guys or compete with them in the new field.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    I actually liked the article overall, and did vote it up. It was just that end that left a bad taste in my mouth... They may not be as profitable for each individual company, but the pie is growing overall. More people than ever before are able to practice music as a profession. Consumer choice has never been greater. If that comes at the expense of the big four, you'll have to forgive my lack of tears.
    - jmtulloss 17y ago
ilkhd2 17y ago
Paranormal activity an Pi are dirty cheap, but nonetheless good movies. I mean expensive is not necessarily good.
- jmtulloss 17y ago
  A few exceptions don't negate the rule. Many of the best productions are that way because the best people worked on it using the best available technologies. That comes at a price. Just look at Youtube. Most of that stuff is utter crap. Just because you find the occasional gem doesn't mean that the site's not full of crap.
  - steveklabnik 17y ago
    One person's crap is another person's awesome.
  - rsheridan6 17y ago
    Most of the stuff on youtube is utter crap, but there's still more interesting stuff than I have time to watch.
    - rob232 17y ago
      Long tail!
    - bootload 17y ago
      "... Most of the stuff on youtube is utter crap, but there's still more interesting stuff than I have time to watch. ..." Watching stuff on youtube for me is really like taping radio as a youngster. Now it's going back for old music video clips and tv shows. One persons crap is someone else's scarce resource.
  - ilkhd2 17y ago
    Well, that is why I watch Vimeo.Low-budget and good. And in general, that is very American way of thinking, that the best movies necessarily have to use most advanced technologies. For example, European movies are often low-budget, yet better than Transformers or Twilight, or similar stuff.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
nopinsight 17y ago
First Off: Many (if not most) film festival winners and even some Oscar winners (Slumdog Millionaire, Japanese's The Departure) don't cost a huge fortune to produce, esp. in relative to Blockbusters. Certain creative pursuits, like TV shows, might get back to its cheaper, more natural roots. I'm sure the cost of making a good TV show wasn't this high in the past. The cost is getting higher partly because of the competition for talents. With less money in the system, it's true that some talents will move to another industry, but many will stay and accept a less extravaganza lifestyle (which is not a great thing to emulate for the society at large anyway). People who really love doing the stuff will likely want to do it no matter what. Of course, certain sorts of movies/shows like those which requires a huge amount of detailed computer graphics will be harder to come by, but that doesn't spell the end of creative works. Lower cost for the whole system could potentially result in better quality (of a different kind) because of less focus on techniques and more on the arts and concepts.
rabidsnail 17y ago
I disagree with the premise that there is a correlation between production cost and quality.
- camccann 17y ago
  Good writers and actors don't usually work for free. Just because there are lots of expensive things that don't really improve quality doesn't mean quality isn't still expensive. Unless you're suggesting that television shows should all be made on a "work for a share of profits" or "work for free to get recognition" basis (i.e., like a start-up or an open-source project respectively). I don't really see most people being able to do that, though.
  - ippisl 17y ago
    tv/movie writing seems to have some potential to crowdsourcing/open-sourcing.so at least this part can become cheap.
    - IsaacL 17y ago
      Have you read any of the "colloborative fiction" websites out there? They're generally awful.
      - ippisl 17y ago
        one form of crowd sourcing is based on prizes , similar to the netflix prize. from what i read , prize based competitions can achieve great results in many areas , with relatively cheap price.
  - Gilson_Silveira 17y ago
    Youtube seems to be going to this direction. For example, if you look for the latest hits on Youtube, you will see that most of them started posting videos there, for free.
    - 17y ago
fnid 17y ago
It is a cycle. Most endeavors start out as labors of love. Invention. Creativity. Internships. Then as the product is developed and there is more demand for it, more customers, more money. The wheat separates from the chaff. The chaff makers lose customers who concentrate among a few vendors who then start charging more and looking for more expensive and talented producers but all the free and cheap stuff is gone. So then the young bucks come in and say, "I can do this for less!" Saṃsāra

37 points by bootload 17y ago

I'm getting a little bit annoyed with the argument that 'Internet taking over these businesses is BAD because it's replacing quality with quantity! You won't get quality anymore because people are flocking to quantity and we can't afford to subsidize it anymore!' On one hand, I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument (Research seems to be funded at least partially in the same way at universities), but overall, if the great masses lack taste and are satisfied with their reality TV, books like Twilight, and Windows PCs, why should they be taxed to pay for the few aristocrats that demand literature? Or, if the value of such things is great enough, then the demand will be there to pay for it. Disclaimer: My OS is Vista, I like watching CSI, and I've liked books that are as empty as Twilight is rumored to be.

camccann 17y ago
Well, there's at least one perspective (accurate or not) from which your point doesn't hold. As a hypothetical, assume that perception of quality within a domain is actually a trained skill, improved by incremental refinement via new experiences within the domain. Further, assume that highly-trained individuals can perceive greater detail, and from that can derive greater enjoyment. That is, a novice is overwhelmed by a few of the most obvious features, whereas an expert picks out subtleties and contrasts and has a richer, more enjoyable experience (there may be a parallel here to the blub paradox). Under such a scenario, most novices (being unable to perceive subtleties) would tend to congregate around only a few examples in the domain that happen to provide the best experience at the broad, obvious level; a local maximum of enjoyment. However, by persuading a novice to experience additional examples that at the obvious levels may seem less appealing, they will gain both expertise and a deeper enjoyment of the domain, at the expense of growing bored with the simpler examples that lack subtleties. New creations in the domain seeking to maximize exposure would tend to the minimum complexity level needed to appeal to a sufficiently large portion of the population. Lower complexity means fewer people expanding their experiences, reducing the overall level of expertise, lowering the minimum, and so on. Given the assumption earlier that experts obtain greater enjoyment from the domain, this results in a globally suboptimal outcome from individually sensible choices. Of course, a fair number of people would disagree with one or both of the assumptions above (myself included). But I suspect many people who bemoan loss of quality would to some extent agree with the scenario I described, wherein quality is indeed valuable without there being demand for it.
- m_eiman 17y ago
  wherein quality is indeed valuable without there being demand for it Value is derived from demand and supply. If there is no demand, there can be no value. If there is demand, there will be value (per supplied unit) if the supply isn't too plentiful. This should mean that, in your example, entry level content should be plentiful and cheap, while the advanced content should be scarce and expensive. Hopefully for the producers of advanced content, the advanced audience will get so much more enjoyment per unit of content that they feel the higher price is justified. To say that more people "should" go through the effort of learning to like the advanced content is pretty elitist, but most of all it doesn't take into consideration everything that they are doing in their lives. Just because some college students think it's worthwhile to learn the intricacies of some obscure tv series it doesn't mean that it's worthwhile for everyone else.
  - gloob 17y ago
    Value is derived from demand and supply. I suspect that the post you are responding to disagrees with this (at least hypothetically). They contend that value is a more-or-less innate quality that the skilled are best at recognizing. Stating your position baldly isn't a particularly strong counterargument. To say that more people "should" go through the effort of learning to like the advanced content is pretty elitist Doesn't matter whether it's elitist, in the same way that it doesn't matter whether Darwin caused the Holocaust. The fact that the consequences are unpleasant does not mean that the assertion is untrue.
    - m_eiman 17y ago
      They contend that value is a more-or-less innate quality that the skilled are best at recognizing. Stating your position baldly isn't a particularly strong counterargument. Value, in the money sense, is what someone is prepared to pay. That's the kind of value I was referring to. Doesn't matter whether it's elitist, in the same way that it doesn't matter whether Darwin caused the Holocaust. Godwin's law. The fact that the consequences are unpleasant does not mean that the assertion is untrue. You ignored the second part of my conclusion: everyone has limited time, and they have to select a subset of what is possible that they will actually do. Also: the post I was responding to was talking about trying to maximize global enjoyment, and proposed that if everyone decided to become experts in a single narrow field of content everyone would be better off. This, however, is also unlikely to find the global maximum. How will everyone know which tiny subfield has the biggest potential for enjoyment? Without trying a lot of different routes to enjoyment, it's very unlikely that they will choose the best one by pure chance. Compare this to genetic algorithms; you need randomness to escape a local maximum. Another problem with the proposed solution is that different people have different personalities and it's very unlikely that a single narrow field will appeal to everyone. Some subset of the population will get lots of enjoyment, while another subset will be bored to tears. That's not going to improve average enjoyment.
credo 17y ago
I think you may be assuming a distinction that isn't there. If (as the article seems to suggest) consumers can get high-value programs as well as low-value programs for the same "free" price , the value of the program isn't going to matter too much from a revenue perspective (for the program producer). That will result in the end of high-value programs that are expensive to produce. It won't be the first time that people make short-term decisions that hurt them in the long-term
- rabidsnail 17y ago
  If there isn't a market for high-value programs that are expensive to produce, at a price greater than free, then those programs are by definition not high-value.
  - credo 17y ago
    That depends on your definition of "high-value" Hypothetically, an individual may consider a video to be high-value. Yet, if the video is pirated and if most people see the video without paying anything to the video-maker, the video-maker may stop making these videos. Now, from a monetary perspective, your comment may make sense. Because of piracy, the video-maker did not make a lot of money from the video. However, I would still consider the hypothetical video to be high-value.

steveklabnik 17y ago

Once again, this article assumes that the current way of doing things is the only way of doing things. New business models will spring up. They always do, no matter how much people decry progress.

jmtulloss 17y ago
The article's not entirely without merit. It's true that new business models will pop up, but will they be as profitable as the current one? Considering the democratizing effect of the internet, I doubt it. The same thing is happening with the music industry. Just because the record labels see a clear pattern towards electronic consumption doesn't mean that clinging to the old model as long as possible isn't the most profitable strategy.
- Daishiman 17y ago
  Sure, it's not going to be as profitable. So what? As long as there is profit to be made someone will step up to the plate.
  - irrelative 17y ago
    The existing players rarely try to innovate within their own field. As you say, someone will step up to the plate, which will allow existing players to buy the new guys or compete with them in the new field.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  I actually liked the article overall, and did vote it up. It was just that end that left a bad taste in my mouth... They may not be as profitable for each individual company, but the pie is growing overall. More people than ever before are able to practice music as a profession. Consumer choice has never been greater. If that comes at the expense of the big four, you'll have to forgive my lack of tears.
  - jmtulloss 17y ago

ilkhd2 17y ago

Paranormal activity an Pi are dirty cheap, but nonetheless good movies. I mean expensive is not necessarily good.

jmtulloss 17y ago
A few exceptions don't negate the rule. Many of the best productions are that way because the best people worked on it using the best available technologies. That comes at a price. Just look at Youtube. Most of that stuff is utter crap. Just because you find the occasional gem doesn't mean that the site's not full of crap.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  One person's crap is another person's awesome.
- rsheridan6 17y ago
  Most of the stuff on youtube is utter crap, but there's still more interesting stuff than I have time to watch.
  - rob232 17y ago
    Long tail!
  - bootload 17y ago
    "... Most of the stuff on youtube is utter crap, but there's still more interesting stuff than I have time to watch. ..." Watching stuff on youtube for me is really like taping radio as a youngster. Now it's going back for old music video clips and tv shows. One persons crap is someone else's scarce resource.
- ilkhd2 17y ago
  Well, that is why I watch Vimeo.Low-budget and good. And in general, that is very American way of thinking, that the best movies necessarily have to use most advanced technologies. For example, European movies are often low-budget, yet better than Transformers or Twilight, or similar stuff.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

nopinsight 17y ago

First Off: Many (if not most) film festival winners and even some Oscar winners (Slumdog Millionaire, Japanese's The Departure) don't cost a huge fortune to produce, esp. in relative to Blockbusters. Certain creative pursuits, like TV shows, might get back to its cheaper, more natural roots. I'm sure the cost of making a good TV show wasn't this high in the past. The cost is getting higher partly because of the competition for talents. With less money in the system, it's true that some talents will move to another industry, but many will stay and accept a less extravaganza lifestyle (which is not a great thing to emulate for the society at large anyway). People who really love doing the stuff will likely want to do it no matter what. Of course, certain sorts of movies/shows like those which requires a huge amount of detailed computer graphics will be harder to come by, but that doesn't spell the end of creative works. Lower cost for the whole system could potentially result in better quality (of a different kind) because of less focus on techniques and more on the arts and concepts.

rabidsnail 17y ago

I disagree with the premise that there is a correlation between production cost and quality.

camccann 17y ago
Good writers and actors don't usually work for free. Just because there are lots of expensive things that don't really improve quality doesn't mean quality isn't still expensive. Unless you're suggesting that television shows should all be made on a "work for a share of profits" or "work for free to get recognition" basis (i.e., like a start-up or an open-source project respectively). I don't really see most people being able to do that, though.
- ippisl 17y ago
  tv/movie writing seems to have some potential to crowdsourcing/open-sourcing.so at least this part can become cheap.
  - IsaacL 17y ago
    Have you read any of the "colloborative fiction" websites out there? They're generally awful.
    - ippisl 17y ago
      one form of crowd sourcing is based on prizes , similar to the netflix prize. from what i read , prize based competitions can achieve great results in many areas , with relatively cheap price.
- Gilson_Silveira 17y ago
  Youtube seems to be going to this direction. For example, if you look for the latest hits on Youtube, you will see that most of them started posting videos there, for free.
  - 17y ago

fnid 17y ago

It is a cycle. Most endeavors start out as labors of love. Invention. Creativity. Internships. Then as the product is developed and there is more demand for it, more customers, more money. The wheat separates from the chaff. The chaff makers lose customers who concentrate among a few vendors who then start charging more and looking for more expensive and talented producers but all the free and cheap stuff is gone. So then the young bucks come in and say, "I can do this for less!" Saṃsāra