A few months ago in New Scientist, Annalee Newitz took the pessimistic view of the next cyber-movement in the making:
- “If web 2.0 is about generating your own content and sharing it, *web 3.0* will be about making information less free. Privacy fears, new forms of advertising, and restrictions imposed by media companies will mean more digital walls, leading to a web that's safer but without its freewheeling edge.”
In truth, it is only a matter of time before our politicians start arguing for the deregulation of information.
The Price of Data
Few people understand the roots of our unprecedented information wealth; often taking it for granted as a product of technological progress. The knowledge economy, they figure, is merely the product of advances that demand ever more skilled workers to operate. On the contrary, it functions in much the same way as an economy.
Case in point, some of you might remember that during the early 1990s, when the internet was first starting to gain popular appeal, .wav and .midi files were the only known types of file for playing audio. And back then, there were whole websites dedicated to short sound bites in these formats. The drawback, however, was that these formats were bulky and ill-suited to the standard dialup connection of 56k. Most clips would have been a few seconds at best, and took a while to complete.
In time, it was this disparity between demand and capacity that would later drive the rapid uptake of mp3s. Converting to the format meant that the customer could gain significantly more content for less data; and the changeover cost was little more than the time to download the software. Had there been a faster rollout of broadband and computer upgrades, we would not have the mp3, and higher capacity networks would offer a less efficient exchange.
By contrast, if we eliminate the pressure to streamline a product, we are left with what some have dubbed “Bloatware.” Which is a bit like verbose prose or a car with too many parts: sloppy, ineffective and a nuisance to repair. And, as any economist would predict, the biggest culprits are the monopoly producers like Microsoft, who have retained market share despite competition from free and higher quality alternatives.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Truly and deeply misguided. The protection of intellectual property rights is the cornerstone of a functioning and competitive and productive society. Take that away and you have chaos and economic devastation. How do artists and inventors and designers and writers get paid for their work if there is no way to protect their ideas?
The one thing keeping the US ahead of the rest of the world is our ability to invent and create. Give up control over those creations and we fall apart.
Dave
2 - Doug Hunter
I disagree, some virtual goods like songs and software can be developed in this way. When you need real experiments with teams of highly paid scientists and complex multimillion $$$ equipment no one other than the government will foot the bill unless they will get some return through rights to their creation.
3 - Clavos
What would be the incentive to write or in any way produce anything without the possibility of compensation for your efforts.
Acknowledging that there are persons who, for some reason mysterious to me, do produce open source software which is distributed free (Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice e.g.), but these are the exceptions. The far more common model is Microsoft.
The author writes:
"If one major English speaking nation decided to abolish its intellectual property laws, the outcome would be a flood of investment in their local I.T. industry and more. Freed to borrow any idea you wished, all products would have to compete on individual merit and the onus would be on all businesses to innovate just to stay in the game."
An intriguing theory, but fails to answer (realistically) why the creators of ideas would be willing to share same if there were no prospect of compensation.
I submit that almost nothing we use today would exist had the inventors not had the possibility of payment on their horizons.
4 - troll
'payment' is conditioned reinforcement and can take many forms...I submit that the notion of compensation as we apply it today is accidental and that fundamental changes in our motives to produce are not only possible but necessary
5 - David
Has anyone ever heard of Linux and the opensource community? Here there are no "intellectual property" rights and there is tremendous innovation taking place. I paid for my last piece of software recently and found out that I couldn't use it because it was defective. I intend to learn to program myself and contribute to this FREE economy because of the way it is so liberating.
6 - Clavos
troll,
What other forms of compensation do you see as viable "fundamental changes in our motives to produce"?
7 - Ian Kemmish
Well, I guess nobody has ever disputed that SOME people have ideas that are without value....
8 - Clavos
@#5,
"Has anyone ever heard of Linux and the opensource community?"
Of course. The problem with Linux is that it's far too difficult and sophisticated for the average Windoze customer to use, let alone comprehend.
As to the open source products which ARE accessible (from a simplicity of use standpoint), there are three examples in my #3, above.
The problem, as I state there, is that it's a limited paradigm; there is not enough interest in producing anything (from software to tomatoes) without some kind of compensation, to sustain such a concept.
It's all well and good (admirable, even) for the software engineer to contribute his talents and energies to the development of open source software, but, if he's doing nothing else (for which he receives compensation), how does he pay his rent (or mortgage) and buy his tomatoes?
An economy purely based on barter is inefficient and unwieldy; that's why they no longer exist in the First World.
9 - troll
Clavos - how about the underlying reason that we produce now: the satisfaction of watching our brothers go to sleep by the fire with a full belly free from fear...the sky's the limit when you set about imagining how people can change - after all it's a matter of individual choice
by 'viable' I assume that you mean that the motive must be part of an efficient book keeping system to regulate production - free markets seem to work fine for this purpose despite their inherent 'lag times' which can be minimized in this age of info sharing
.....one could view your body of work here on BC as a work of art or brilliant product
so - why do you do it - ?
10 - Schismatic
The only way open source works is on a very small scale or when the author expects to benefit from the work in some secondary way as a cinsultant or through peripheral sales or through the development of a markwt for other products or just through boosting his rep to make him more marketabke for other work.
11 - Clavos
troll,
"how about the underlying reason that we produce now: the satisfaction of watching our brothers go to sleep by the fire with a full belly free from fear"
Cynic (and selfish man) that I am, I question whether your assumption applies to more than a small (very small) portion of humanity. I really believe that the great majority of people are far more motivated by their own needs (and desires) than by altruism.
"so - why do you do it - ?"
Why do I participate in these boards and write for BC?
It's a hobby; I enjoy writing, I enjoy debating, I am interested in the issues debated here in the Politics section (You rarely will see me commenting in the more cultural areas of the site, and I've only written one article, a CD review, outside of Politics), some would say I do it because I have an inflated ego, as well as an erroneous idea of the value of my contributions. Take your pick.
In short, I do it for a variety of selfish reasons.
But, if I thought I could get paid (in money or barter) for it, I would. I do get paid (very modestly) for writing and editing advertising materials and press releases for small yacht brokerages who can't afford the big guys.
12 - Christopher Rose
People who enjoy "the satisfaction of watching our brothers go to sleep by the fire with a full belly free from fear" are natural leaders. The ones asleep by the fire are not.
Many people just do what makes sense to them internally without necessarily thinking about where that might lead or what the rewards might be. Those that don't, well, they're the ones asleep by that fire.
Ironically, the former can often lead to unimagined wealth or other rewards.
13 - Clavos
"People who enjoy "the satisfaction of watching our brothers go to sleep by the fire with a full belly free from fear" are natural leaders."
Thanks for proving my point; the "leaders" (natural or unnatural) are a very small portion of humanity.
14 - Christopher Rose
Of course. It would be anti-survivalist any other way.
15 - Doug Hunter
So, this is a free country. If communists want free ideas and free products and free services there is nothing stopping them from creating them, have at it.
There is no requirement to patent or protect your ideas. No one makes you slave for wages (Ok, there are minimum wage laws that might kick in), you are welcome to find some likeminded folks and get your own commune. Each of you can give freely to each other and all fall asleep by the fire together.
The problem is this imaginary utopia of ideals doesn't and can't work here in reality. It's been tried and failed countless times with disastrous and often genocidal results.
Why then do the dreamers continue to fall for the mirage?
16 - Doug Hunter
So, this is a free country. If communists want free ideas and free products and free services there is nothing stopping them from creating them, have at it.
There is no requirement to patent or protect your ideas. No one makes you slave for wages (Ok, there are minimum wage laws that might kick in), you are welcome to find some likeminded folks and get your own commune. Each of you can give freely to each other and all fall asleep by the fire together.
The problem is this imaginary utopia of ideals doesn't and can't work here in reality. It's been tried and failed countless times with disastrous and often genocidal results.
Why then do the dreamers continue to fall for the mirage?
17 - troll
'free''s got nothing to do with it...
but you are right...every commune that I've looked at has ended up nothing more that some guru's tyranny
(apologies to the exceptional groups who are no doubt out there making it work)
18 - Baronius
This is a little bit off the thread, and back to the original article - What about the value of "clean" information? It seems to me that more of us are spending our time removing bugs and spyware from our software, buying firewalls and antivirus programs, et cetera. The sharing of information is becoming increasingly difficult. I don't think that the next innovations are going to increase connectivity, despite the predictions. They're going to be more restrictive.
Why do we post on BC? Because it's one of the three or four things you can do online that doesn't infect your hard drive.
19 - bliffle
Unfortunately, by exaggerating the value of IP (by extending copyright and patent privileges to unreasonable lengths, for example) we've created a huge money gap between various creative efforts. We've also created the nefarious business of pre-empting a creators benefits through predatory contracts imposed by oligopolies.
There's got to be some middleground. Perhaps better protection for authors from their employers.
As it is, the high monopoly prices demanded by many companies for 'their' IP is a fraud since they didn't really create it. We all know the stories, too numerous to be listed, of creators who've been cheated out of the just proceeds of their efforts and invention.
20 - Jonathan Scanlan
Guys, I think you'll find that a lot of people get paid for their creativity and designing in spite of copyright or patent because they function more like trades people - they recieve a fee for projects and expert consulting.
In a free market of ideas, there is very little change for the knowledge worker.
21 - Surfer
Never read so much rubbish in all me life!
Queenslanders ... an entire State full of Australia's modern-day equivalent of the flat-Earth society :)
22 - Surfer
It's not really their fault though.
They've gone troppo with the heat up there.
23 - bliffle
Doug Hunters assertions fly in the face of direct evidence. Around here there are many improvised living arrangements that can only be described as 'communes'. From Budhist enclaves, catholic novitiates, monasteries, nunneries, etc., to atheist/agnostic/nondenominational collections of people. Even the townhouse/condo community is a sort of soft commune wherein, generally, people pitch in to help each other in a low-profile way. They take all kinds of forms, with sometimes more and sometimes less, in the way of formal agreements and contracts. And they have been around for many years and demonstrated great stability.
Clavos is wrong about 'altruistic' people being a small minority. In fact, if you think about it you realize that the most powerful force in peoples lives is gregariousness: the desire to be accepted in social groups. That is the spur, in fact, for the greed that Clavos imagines as a motivation. Greed is just a way station on the way to commanding power over people and/or winning their admiration and love. Altruism is similar to what is sometimes called 'enlightened self-interest', but is quite apart from that. For example, I am quite happy to pick my wife up at the airport in a couple weeks when she returns from China, even tho it's a 20 mile drive there, and then I drive more miles out of my way to drop her at her daughters house. No reward visible and I don't have to do it. But I feel that if it is good for my wife it makes me feel better immediately. It's the right thing to do. It's what I would want were it me. Empathy.
Almost all people are gregarious. The human animal is so inclined. we would never have survived evolution without gregariousness. we are simply to weak, vulnerable, poorly furred and protected, weak of claw and fang. People who are NOT gregarious are considered freaks. Sometimes called sociopaths or psychopaths, they are recognized as defective and dangerous. And, indeed, they often commit dreadfully anti-social acts. Their lack of empathy and poor socialization marks them.
24 - Dan Miller
Obviously, most of us work for money, and that is a necessary driving force. I don't for a moment think that the intellectual property laws should be repealed; innovation would slow down dramatically. Despite my modestly Luddite tendencies, I think that would on balance be a bad thing.
Silly, perhaps, but still not such a bad idea.However, Money is not always the driving force. Clav, you say, there are persons who, for some reason mysterious to me, do produce open source software which is distributed free. . . With all respect (and I did read your subsequent posts), I don't think it is a really a complete mystery to you. Lots of us, you included, submit articles to and post comments on Blogcritics, even though we don't get paid a penny. Indeed, some of us (again, you included) spend quite a lot of time doing so. Could it possibly be that we enjoy it and derive satisfaction from it? There are lots of things we all do for free, just because we want to. I like to ride my horses and to drink rum (although not at the same time); I don't get paid to do either, and in fact both cost me money.
As to open source software, it strikes me that Firefox, Open Office, and other pretty nifty things are not done on "very small scale" (comment #10). There is lots of that stuff out there, and some of it is pretty good and very widely used. Sure, I know, Sun is behind Open Office, and probably derives some satisfaction from putting MicroMushy in its place; as well it should. It may even see some potential financial return on the horizon. So?
In L'Envoi, Kipling looked forward to a day when, after the Earth's Last Picture had been Painted,
Dan
PS My internet connection has been quite irregular and constipated all day, to the point that I already poured prune juice into the keyboard and am about to attack the CPU in similar fashion; won't work, but I will still get some satisfaction. If this problem results in a double post, please forgive me.
25 - troll
...I await the arrival of Wells' comet