Derek Kerton 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Amanda Palmer Connects With Fans, Gives 'Em A Reason To Buy… And Makes $19k In 10 Hours

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2009 @ 03:48pm

    Re:

    Well, I agree with you. But I'm not about to force my tastes on others.

    If you are pro free market, then how about we just let Amanda Palmer and her fans decide what product they trade.

    It's boxed-in thinking like yours (dismissive of what Palmer sells) that keeps the recording industry from seeing other valuable opportunities. Let the market set the price of goods. Recorded music is driven by econ to a price of 0, but drunken postcards are not. So be it.

  • On the post: Amanda Palmer Connects With Fans, Gives 'Em A Reason To Buy… And Makes $19k In 10 Hours

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2009 @ 03:15pm

    Re: Re:

    Back in time a little, a successful band wasn't happy with the deal they were getting from the label, either. So they started their own label, Apple Records, to avoid sharing their revenues with a company that contributes little to their business.

    They connected directly with fans using the, then current, technology, and cut out the middle man.

    The name of the band eludes me, but as I recall they did quite well. I think they eventually got a notable amount of commercial success.

    So, no, it's not just small acts that can do better without a label. Did you intend for your comment to be ironic in light of Mike's closing:

    "So, go on, naysayers in the comments. Point out, yet again, why this is the exception, and explain why other artists can never do their own creative means of connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy. We'll chuckle, and watch as more and more figure it out."

  • On the post: Amanda Palmer Connects With Fans, Gives 'Em A Reason To Buy… And Makes $19k In 10 Hours

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2009 @ 12:23pm

    Re: more....

    So, Amanda:

    You create the music.

    You front the money to record it.

    You promote it with appearances, and through connecting with your fans.

    And 30k copies are sold, while the label keeps all the proceeds, leaving you to fend for yourself.

    I sure would like the commenters above, like Bob, JAy, and Lostsailor, to update their comments given these new facts.

    Tell us again how the label is essential to Amanda's success?

  • On the post: Amanda Palmer Connects With Fans, Gives 'Em A Reason To Buy… And Makes $19k In 10 Hours

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2009 @ 12:13pm

    Re: also

    Irrelevant trolling.

    Music and style appreciation are matters of taste, thus highly subjective, and utterly irrelevant to the discussion here.

    Techdirt never talks about "liking" the music. It's strictly about the technology and business.

    I've never heard Plummer's music, nor Trent Reznor's, nor most of the musicians discussed at Techdirt, and one need not do so to participate in the discussions. Thus site isn't written by music fans or music critics.

  • On the post: Amanda Palmer Connects With Fans, Gives 'Em A Reason To Buy… And Makes $19k In 10 Hours

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2009 @ 12:08pm

    Re: Good for Amanda, Sucks to be her "friends"

    Actually, this blog has seen a number of examples of artists getting their fans to sponsor the production of an upcoming album. To pre-buy the album and other goods and personalized services, so that negates your entire argument.

    An Apple computer in capable hands seems to be a fairly capable recording studio these days. The budget for that can't be too high.

    Of course, you do need some combination of decent music, showmanship, or hotness, and the artist needs to provide that.

    Labels: not needed for distribution
    Labels: not needed for production
    Labels: not needed for creation of music

    Labels: needed at all?

  • On the post: Senator Orrin Hatch… And The Lies The Copyright Industry Tells

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 08:02pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "Actually, it's a two shot deal. First, it's because Mike's version of progress seems to often involve things like remix artists, samplers, and people making movies using other people's music. I don't consider any of those sorts of things as progress, just running through the same rut."

    I think you are referring to me, not Mike.

    Anyways, you have disdain for "tweaks" as something that barely promotes "progress".

    Get a grip, open your eyes. Tweaks are what separates Facebook from Classmates.com. There are thousands of examples of how tweaks made all the difference between a product that offers citizens value and one that doesn't. Tweaks are the difference between a fiddle and a Stradivarius, William Hung and Kelly Clarkson, a Yugo and a BMW. If Yugo patented *the car*, then we would have nothing but.

    NEXT, you wrote:

    "Your windows 3 example is funny, mostly because it hasn't stopped Apple from thinking outside that box, it hasn't stopped the open desktop people from thinking outside the box, it hasn't stopped Palm from thinking outside of the box, etc. If they all just looked at Windows3 and said "well, that's it for 20 years on operating systems" we would be stopped, which appears to be your idea."

    You argued like a jerk. You tried to ridicule Xanthir by accusing him of what YOU said. He didn't say that waiting for 20-year old Windows3 patents was a useful idea. Do you remember who did? Yep, that was YOU, and here's your quote:

    "As the patents expire, people like you who enjoy tweaking things have a whole universe of blueprints to work from... In fact, all this public information is probably a great source of progress, no?"

    Way to argue against yourself. To you, it would appear that "thinking outside the box" includes making fun of other people for things you wrote yourself.

  • On the post: Senator Orrin Hatch… And The Lies The Copyright Industry Tells

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 07:51pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "
    First and foremost, if you measure the universe (or even mankind) by your the length of your own lifetime, you are fairly short sighted. Many of the greatest accomplishments of mankind took hundreds of years. 20 years is barely a blink of the cosmic eyes."

    My good man, we're not talking about geology here. We're talking about the incentive for a person to invent. If you tell me my "tweaks" will be appreciated hundreds of years hence, I think that would suppress incentive, and not progress the useful arts and sciences.

    How trite to spin an argument that tries to make fun of Xanthir's excellent comment by acting like he is a fool with a short-term view. Incentives ARE short-term agents. Patents are not about controlling the flow of glaciers! We're talking about fast-moving human progress. Most pro-patent apologists would agree that inventors would prefer a few shekels in the here-and-now over a bag of gold posthumously.

  • On the post: As Expected, Bill Introduced To Outlaw Tiered Bandwidth Pricing

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 07:34pm

    Re: Re: Metered?

    You'll probably find no precise nomenclature here. That's because one doesn't really exist. You seem to have very clear ideas of what "metered" represents: to you it means user pays based on a price/kb basis, much like a gas pump for your car.

    But please understand that a capped, tiered, or other "flat-rate" service can also be considered to be "metered" in that there is a meter running, counting your bits. The difference is in the billing (service plan), not in whether the service is metered or not.

    So, basically, sorry, you won't get agreement around a set terminology, at least not in the way you propose it. However, the use of "metered" will likely be easily understood contextually.

  • On the post: Mos Def Tries T-Shirt As An Album Business Model

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 07:24pm

    Re: Re:

    Dude,

    You're killing us. You just don't understand. I was an undergrad econ tutor at Cornell, and I did run into a few students like you. Sometimes people just don't get it. The econ dept. wasn't paying me to teach students "Masnick's Theories", but they paid me to teach enough micro-economics to pass the class. Mike, nor I, didn't invent our opinions of Marginal Cost. We learned them. They are not theory, or even a social science, they are mathematical rule.

    Do you understand that MC is a derivative of TC? Do you understand that when you take a first order derivative, constants go to zero? Constants have no effect on the "rate of change" of an equation, thus are zeroed out. This is not "Masnick wishful thinking", it's @#$@# calculus. Sorry if this is over your head.

    "each use of that master to make a copy creates a marginal cost."

    No, my good man. No, it doesn't. You are, once again, clumsily talking about average cost.

    And Mike lost his grip when you used the term "AVERAGE marginal cost". So you really don't understand how that term makes no sense whatsoever? Average is the antithesis of Marginal. Average is to Marginal as Communal is to Individual. They are very #$%$% different. This is why Mike says you are making a fool of yourself. You are saying black is white, and arguing it to the bitter end.

    You don't get it. And you are frustrating because you don't get it that you don't get it.

    Please, just try to trust me for a minute. If you put 100 economists in a room and asked them the cause of the recession, you'd have 100 different opinions. If you asked them if YOU are right about MC, you would have unanimous consensus that you are wrong. In this case, it is not a matter of opinion.

    Wikipedia disagrees with you. Two honors economics grads from good schools disagree with you. The hyperlink that Mike sent you disagrees with you. But you feel you have "Nothing to admit - I checked already." You, sir, are the epitome of stubborn.

  • On the post: Time To Start Thinking About Infinite Bandwidth

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 07:00pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    So when he said long ago "The music industry does not need DRM, nor disks, nor vinyl. Creative artists will find new ways to sell their wares, new wares to sell, and music will survive and even thrive." You're saying he was throwing shit at the wall.

    Sure enough, a bunch of creative businesspeople/artists are coming up with new business models and new ways of making money. Mike trots them out on his blog - not to prove he was right, or he'd link to his ancient posts predicting it - but to make current arguments to try and convince the die-hards and the Luddites that it is possible. But those people deny the current reality just as they denied his predictions before.

    Well, he predicted it, and the Anon Cowards of the day told him he was stupid then. No, he's no demi-god, and he's not the only one to have been right. But he has mostly been right, and that counts for a lot.

    Like I said, he should produce a list of his predictions, and then the outcomes. Then perhaps you could do the same, and we could compare grades.

  • On the post: Time To Start Thinking About Infinite Bandwidth

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 01:49pm

    Re:

    I disagree completely with Mike regarding metered broadband, and I don't completely agree with him on this post, but when you say:

    "The black box is observed for a certain amount of time, perhaps a trend is noticed, and then it is extrapolated until it meets the "Masnick Theory of the Universe (MTU)". However, unless you understand the what the black box does and it's moving parts, you might mistake the results for something other than a random series of events."

    It makes me wonder. Did you read any Techdirt early in the century? Mike said a lot of wacky, stupid, controversial shit, I'm sure you would agree. Lots of sensible people like you popped up in the comments to set him straight, but the stubborn bastard just argued his points.

    Then skip back to the present, and...WTF? He was right about a lot of those things? Oops. Of course, the original crop of Anonymous Cowards have long since dropped off, so they're not around to say "Mea culpa", but are replaced by a new crop like you, who think that his current predictions are whacked.

    This blog has a 10-year record. It has correctly predicted "improbable" futures for years. Mike should scrape together a bullet list of the things he predicted through the decade, and had to argue, which turned out correct. OK, so as a contributor here, I'm biased, but the record speaks for itself.

    In contrast, I have found the Anon Cowards to have had very little predictive reliability.

  • On the post: Amazon: A Search Engine With A Warehouse

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 01:22pm

    Cluetrain

    What I like the most about Amazon's user reviews is that it fills in the (huge) gaps the product makers leave in their product descriptions.

    When descriptions, and box labels don't describe all of a products benefits, and none of its weaknesses, the Amazon reviews offer a smattering of both. This helps me greatly in choosing between competing products.

  • On the post: NY Times Discovers That Advertising Is Content; Content Is Advertising

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 23 Jun, 2009 @ 11:54am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "...and my point is that at a point where the content is more to do with sales and less to do with content, people will once again tune out."

    (sarcasm) Yeah, like they stopped going to Disneyland since Disney became just one big commercial for itself.(end)

    Disney is a great example of content that is all advertising. Content sells resort visits, resort visits sell souvenir gifts, all in one big 'circle of life'. But people keep eating it up, because it is ALSO fun, entertaining, and well produced.

  • On the post: Mos Def Tries T-Shirt As An Album Business Model

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2009 @ 10:23am

    Re:

    another point. In your scenario you say:

    "Thus, the internet (and bandwidth) is a marginal cost."

    Wrong. You have just described a Variable Cost. It is variable because from month to month you can choose to incur it or not.

    But you've stumbled upon being right in this way: for the first movie the guy downloads, that $100 IS a marginal cost for that single movie. But for movies 2-100 it is not. It is already a "sunk cost". After movie 1, every movie has a bandwidth MC of 0 for the guy you describe.

    If you still think I'm wrong, consider what I say in the paragraph above in light of the Wikipedia quote you got:

    "In economics and finance, marginal cost is the change in total cost that arises when the quantity produced changes by one unit. It is the cost of producing one more unit of a good."

    When your guy changed from 0 to 1 movie, he needed to spend $100 for the ISP, when he changed quantity from 1 to 2, he needed to spend nothing. The change in total cost from 1 to 2 was zero. MC = 0.

    I think I've made it pretty clear. Is this explanation working for anyone?

  • On the post: Mos Def Tries T-Shirt As An Album Business Model

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2009 @ 10:12am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    another point. You say:

    "That marginal cost decreases with volume, but it is there."

    Wrong. You're talking about Average Cost again. AC often decreases with volume (but not always).

    MC and volume share a complicated relationship that depends on a variety of factors.

  • On the post: Mos Def Tries T-Shirt As An Album Business Model

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2009 @ 10:06am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Dude. You're wrong, Mike is right. Take it from another guy with an honors econ degree.

    You really don't fundamentally understand what a marginal cost is, nor the importance of the concept to this debate. You make your arguments, which are wrong, and you cite Wikipedia, which was correct, and you aren't aware that you don't actually understand what is written at the wiki.

    You repeatedly confuse marginal cost and average cost. Perhaps it is because MC is a derivative? Many people have trouble with calculus, and that may include you. I know this from the movie Stand and Deliver.

    You create a scenario:
    "A good example would be the guy who gets a second internet service into his home solely for downloading. He downloads 100 movies each month, and pays $100 for internet service. Thus, his marginal costs per copy are $1. His copy isn't free."

    Wrong. Once he gets that service, his marginal costs per movie that month are nil. Above, you skillfully calculated Average Cost, then clumsily misnamed it MC. Ask yourself this, if he had decided, after your example, to download a 101th movie, would his ISP charge him $1 or $0? MC is the cost for *the next* unit of production.

    I know it may be hard, but please consider the option that you may be wrong here. Seriously, just imagine for a bit that we're not just Internet bloggers and dickheads, and that instead we are serious, educated, smart people with solid foundations in econ. Then, even if you are just as qualified as us, you may want to take this 'peer review' seriously and check your facts.

  • On the post: As Expected, Bill Introduced To Outlaw Tiered Bandwidth Pricing

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 18 Jun, 2009 @ 11:02am

    ISPs Shouldn't Be Able To Offer Free Transport To Their Content

    One relatively simple piece of legislation that I don't hear discussed too often is that ISPs that institute caps, tiers, or metered broadband (which I support) should be prohibited from offering *their* content with free transport that doesn't count against the allottment.

    This may seem anti-consumer, but actually it is not. Mike is correct to point out that ISPs will use caps to make competing video services unattractive compared to their own. Their is a clear conflict of interest in a company that both operates the only transport AND offers a competitive content service. If carriers were required to compete for content on a even playing field, the content market would be competitive, not constricted. This would lead to lower prices, more selection for content.

    There is ample precedent. Way back, a friend worked for Western Gas in Toronto. Her company owned the Trans Canada Pipeline, but they were forced to separate the two businesses - one that transported the gas, and one that sold the gas to municipalities and utilities. As a common carrier, the pipeline company was required to charge the same rates to Western Gas (it's subsidiary) as it charged to other wholesale competitors. The result was that people paid for transport based on how much transport they used, and there was only one (natural monopoly) infrastructure layer needed. The wholesale market for gas was competitive with Western Gas just one of many players.

    Why is everybody acting like we need to figure this out for the first time?

    Bandwidth, though plentiful, is not unlimited. As such, metering of some kind is appropriate. Competition on the retail side is very desireable. Without it, it is safe to assume that tiers of service will be used to screw the customer as much as offer choice. Regulations should separate the transport from the retail with something like the repealed UNE-P, which be briefly had 1996-2003. Remember when upstart CLEC companies like Covad were nipping at the telco's heels?

    I repeat what I've posted before. Line sharing is needed. Does it work? Bouygues Telecom, a consulting client of mine and French ISP, offers triple play service for about $60 which includes high-speed Internet, a VoIP fixed phone line, and 30 channels of TV. They are just one of many competitors. Do this, and worries about tiered services go away.

    Sixty dollar triple-plays sound like something consumers here would like? Despite how much US businesses makes fun of the French, they could teach us something about telecom competition.

  • On the post: In Defense Of Mobile E-Mail 'Addiction'

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2009 @ 10:34am

    Re: optimum meeting attention

    I can't be sure if you're being facetious or not. Your argument is correct, but you are using examples where we DO want people to pay attention, mostly because their job has a high level of "paying attention, on call, and ready to respond" in it. If you're being sarcastic, then that's a bit of a strawman, since nobody ever suggested these people whack away on email instead of their job.

    However, if you're talking straight, we are in agreement that for many employees, gains in productivity, efficiency, operations, yield management..all deal with filling in, or avoiding gaps in productivity.

    - Just in time shipping
    - Decision support systems
    - logistics sytems such as ERP
    - real time info systems that fedex drivers use
    - taxi drivers use dispatch opeators
    - police officers use wireless data systems to file reports from their cars, so they don't have to drve into the station
    - call center systems use predictive dialing (duly hated by consumers) to keep their reps "fully utilized"
    - Southwest keeps their planes in the air, not the ground, avoiding 'gaps' for both their staff and equipment

    There are thousands of examples of businesses tring to fill in the gaps for their employees. Basically, the businesses think if it is not a break or lunch, then it is a time resource that should be utilized as efficiently as possible.

    Sadly, when it's OUR job, we react poorly saying "They expect me to work non-stop." But if you want to enjoy lower prices, better service, and if you want America to be able to compete with India, we need to be as productive as we can be. As a nation, we have the advantage of better tools, better access to capital, but I'm not sure we have the advantage of a better work ethic.

    Mobile email, used well, is just a tool to make more efficient use of gap time. In this case, it's often the managers who are expected to work in downtime or at night. The ability to make decisions and manage one's team while in another city in a meeting is powerful. An entire production team could be waiting for something as simple as an 'ok' from the boss. The boss is tied up in a 3 hour meeting. A 5 minute mail check could allow that team to get back to work. It's the
    Real Time Enterprise.

  • On the post: In Defense Of Mobile E-Mail 'Addiction'

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2009 @ 10:17am

    Re: it's really simple people

    Obviously if you are completely un-needed at a meeting, then not going is the solution. But you are seeing the question as either i) 100% needed at the entire meeting, OR ii) completely un-needed at all.

    That bi-polar situation is almost never the case.

    Many meetings are called for which it IS productive to attend, however, your attention is not needed throughout the entire meeting. Just at specific times during the meeting.

    In fact, most multi-party meetings are like this. Blackberry-type devices are fantasic tools for making those in-between moments productive, when historically all you could do was daydream about your holidays coupled with a blank stare.

    What's more productive, mobile email, or a blank stare?

  • On the post: In Defense Of Mobile E-Mail 'Addiction'

    Derek Kerton ( profile ), 16 Jun, 2009 @ 09:56am

    Re: Re: Re: Texting

    Yeah. Although the original article specifically noted that one-on-one, your undivided attention is expected.

    "In a one on one meeting, obviously one should be focused on the person in front, and one should not feign listening while actually reading."

    In those 1-on-1 situations, when an urgent call/email/sms arises, the person should apologize, say how long they will be interrupting the meeting, and make it as short as humanly possible.

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