Porn is one of the classical areas where a 'pay to have more produced' model would work well. In fact since the artistic merits of the work is arguably low, there are schemes that work better than in the music industry.
For example, a famous porn actress could star in a free but short porn clip, with a possibility of 3 different ways it could be extended. Folks would pay .50 or so to vote for their favorite choice, and then a short time later the next segment would be free released as well, with yet another vote for the next segment.
This would produce the porn equivalent of a choose-your-own-adventure, with folks voting with their wallets as to which acts they would most like to see.
I don't want to appear to be supporting patent trolls (indeed, I am rather vehemently anti-patent) but it suddenly occurred to me that there was an argument in favour of OPTi, and one that I've never seen in print.
The above article made it clear to me than one can view the marketplace of innovation in evolutionary terms. The failure of uncompetitive companies can be directly linked to the idea of "survival of the fittest", and companies like OPTi that live off the hard work of others can be viewed as parasites in the biological sense.
Now, a surprising finding of evolutionary theory is that parasites are good for a population. They force the population to be more fit on average and better able to withstand hardships as a whole, and they increase the rate at which members of the population evolve, by reducing the chance of population members ending up in evolutionary dead ends.
Of course 'parasite' is not generally a term of praise because no individual likes to be targeted by a parasite, but their mere existence in a population often causes globally beneficial behaviours that outweigh the harm they do.
Now, the real question is: do some analogous benefits accrue to the population of productive companies? Its not obvious that they do or don't. Companies aren't exactly like organisms and its unclear if they can be said to reproduce, pass on their genetic codes, and die in a sufficiently similar way for the findings of evolutionary biology to hold. Then again, most findings of evolution are surprisingly robust to changes of reproductive mechanism, so it would be best not to rule out the possibility.
I would love to see some scientific study done to see if this relationship between patent trolls and parasitology holds. If it does then attempts to curb patent trolls may actually do more harm than good.
While I don't find Doonesbury 'funny' in the Ha Ha sense, I do find it an interesting and wry look at the history of American Politics.
Recently, I decided I wanted to read the entire archive from the beginning, but I discovered that, unlike most online comics, one cannot buy a convenient dead-tree version of the entire opus. The best one can get are selected excerpts, so he never got my money because I couldn't find any way to pay him to get what I wanted.
If he can't even manage to commercialize himself in the most obvious of manners, I'm not surprised his web site makes only a modest amount of money.
I spent a few months last year working in Silicon Valley on a project, and as I enjoy reading a daily paper while lingering over a cup of coffee, I spent some time trying to find a local paper to buy. It was very frustrating as I couldn't find anything that I would even classify as a newspaper. Yes, there was the San Jose Mercury News, and a number of other papers but none of them were worth reading for free, never mind paying for. And keep in mind that I'm addicted to reading a daily paper.
Now I'm told that Montreal is blessed in still having a daily newspaper worth reading, but there are second-string papers in this city that are better than the San Jose Mercury News.
In the end I started reading the free give-away papers than only come out every two weeks or so. They were few and far between, but at least they were worth reading. Could it be because they had learned to compete in an environment where free was common?
Just want to point out that "OiNK filled a needed void in the music industry" would seem to imply that the void was necessary and that OiNK filling it was a BAD thing.
What may seems like an obvious bad idea to some may seem like a good idea to others. The distinction isn't as cut-and-dried as the above would seem to make it. Of course there are the obviously stupid ideas, and the obviously brilliant ones, but there's a large grey area in between as well.
The wonderful thing about the cheapness of the internet is that all of these so-so ideas can be tried out, and the attention market will quickly sort the good from the bad.
I wrote a long article for my blog a few years back in which I stated that the whole problem is one of who owns the RFID tags. After an item is purchased, it should no longer respond to queries from anyone but the owner of the item. Until RFID tags incorporate the features I mention in that article, there are going to be security concerns.
For those interested, the article can be found here:
Tried to order this.
Doesn't ship to Canada. Would have been nice to know that before I had made an account and all.
Porn is one of the classical areas where a 'pay to have more produced' model would work well. In fact since the artistic merits of the work is arguably low, there are schemes that work better than in the music industry.
For example, a famous porn actress could star in a free but short porn clip, with a possibility of 3 different ways it could be extended. Folks would pay .50 or so to vote for their favorite choice, and then a short time later the next segment would be free released as well, with yet another vote for the next segment.
This would produce the porn equivalent of a choose-your-own-adventure, with folks voting with their wallets as to which acts they would most like to see.
A Novel Idea
I don't want to appear to be supporting patent trolls (indeed, I am rather vehemently anti-patent) but it suddenly occurred to me that there was an argument in favour of OPTi, and one that I've never seen in print.
The above article made it clear to me than one can view the marketplace of innovation in evolutionary terms. The failure of uncompetitive companies can be directly linked to the idea of "survival of the fittest", and companies like OPTi that live off the hard work of others can be viewed as parasites in the biological sense.
Now, a surprising finding of evolutionary theory is that parasites are good for a population. They force the population to be more fit on average and better able to withstand hardships as a whole, and they increase the rate at which members of the population evolve, by reducing the chance of population members ending up in evolutionary dead ends.
Of course 'parasite' is not generally a term of praise because no individual likes to be targeted by a parasite, but their mere existence in a population often causes globally beneficial behaviours that outweigh the harm they do.
Now, the real question is: do some analogous benefits accrue to the population of productive companies? Its not obvious that they do or don't. Companies aren't exactly like organisms and its unclear if they can be said to reproduce, pass on their genetic codes, and die in a sufficiently similar way for the findings of evolutionary biology to hold. Then again, most findings of evolution are surprisingly robust to changes of reproductive mechanism, so it would be best not to rule out the possibility.
I would love to see some scientific study done to see if this relationship between patent trolls and parasitology holds. If it does then attempts to curb patent trolls may actually do more harm than good.
Bad Commercialization.
While I don't find Doonesbury 'funny' in the Ha Ha sense, I do find it an interesting and wry look at the history of American Politics.
Recently, I decided I wanted to read the entire archive from the beginning, but I discovered that, unlike most online comics, one cannot buy a convenient dead-tree version of the entire opus. The best one can get are selected excerpts, so he never got my money because I couldn't find any way to pay him to get what I wanted.
If he can't even manage to commercialize himself in the most obvious of manners, I'm not surprised his web site makes only a modest amount of money.
Not worth reading.
I spent a few months last year working in Silicon Valley on a project, and as I enjoy reading a daily paper while lingering over a cup of coffee, I spent some time trying to find a local paper to buy. It was very frustrating as I couldn't find anything that I would even classify as a newspaper. Yes, there was the San Jose Mercury News, and a number of other papers but none of them were worth reading for free, never mind paying for. And keep in mind that I'm addicted to reading a daily paper.
Now I'm told that Montreal is blessed in still having a daily newspaper worth reading, but there are second-string papers in this city that are better than the San Jose Mercury News.
In the end I started reading the free give-away papers than only come out every two weeks or so. They were few and far between, but at least they were worth reading. Could it be because they had learned to compete in an environment where free was common?
Minor Grammatical Nitpick.
Just want to point out that "OiNK filled a needed void in the music industry" would seem to imply that the void was necessary and that OiNK filling it was a BAD thing.
Telling the Good from the Bad.
What may seems like an obvious bad idea to some may seem like a good idea to others. The distinction isn't as cut-and-dried as the above would seem to make it. Of course there are the obviously stupid ideas, and the obviously brilliant ones, but there's a large grey area in between as well.
The wonderful thing about the cheapness of the internet is that all of these so-so ideas can be tried out, and the attention market will quickly sort the good from the bad.
RFID ownership.
I wrote a long article for my blog a few years back in which I stated that the whole problem is one of who owns the RFID tags. After an item is purchased, it should no longer respond to queries from anyone but the owner of the item. Until RFID tags incorporate the features I mention in that article, there are going to be security concerns.
For those interested, the article can be found here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/swestrup/221836.html