Downes 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (28) comment rss

  • On the post: Why Government Backed Businesses Will Always Be Inefficient

    Downes ( profile ), 02 Mar, 2009 @ 03:30am

    Not Scrutinizing

    As it turns out, not scrutinizing non-government business turns out to be a false economy. Or have you not noticed the financial crash happening all around us these days?

    And in non-scrutinized enterprise, business decisions are not made according to sound business judgment, but rather, based on the short-term greed of the person making the decider. Or, again, have you not noticed the crash.

    I think that if this crash teaches us anything, it is that the tired old reasoning recited in this post is simply wrong. Private enterprise is not inherently better. Life and economics are more complex than that.

  • On the post: Government Already Overpaid By $78 Billion In Bailout Money

    Downes ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2009 @ 07:57am

    The government...

    I think in posts like this you need to distinguish between "the government" and "the Bush government".

    So when you say "The government isn't just throwing money at a problem that might not need money -- it's doing it badly" what you mean is "The Bush government wassn't just throwing money at a problem that might not need money -- it was doing it badly."

    The current government, which has a clue (unlike the Bush government), is far less likely to make $78 billion simply disappear.

  • On the post: Is Someone Playing A Joke? Why Would Penguin Force Colbert To Take Down Lessig's Remix?

    Downes ( profile ), 09 Jan, 2009 @ 02:26pm

    Hulu

    Please do not use Hulu, not even if they pay you. Hulu just throws up a big error screen outside the U.S. - where 95 percent of people live.

  • On the post: Patent Lawsuit So Bogus That The Judge Ordered Sanctions And Attorney's Fees Paid

    Downes ( profile ), 08 Dec, 2008 @ 06:06pm

    Actually, all this will do is limit the frivolous lawsuits to companies that are large enough to afford risking the costs.

  • On the post: When Life And Work Blend, Everything Is Commercial Use

    Downes ( profile ), 08 Dec, 2008 @ 02:59pm

    Non-Commercial

    > it seems that the distinction between personal, professional, commercial and non-commercial are becoming increasingly meaningless -- and that's not a bad thing.

    Yes it is. It is, because it means that everything is becoming commercial. And that's a bad thing.

    We need to have some space in our lives - and some space on the internet - that is not dedicated to dog-eat-dog scratching for a living.

    We need space and time in our ives to do things simply because we love them, not so they can be monetized.

    The conversion of everything on the web - or anywhere - into a commercial good is a sympton of a society that has collapsed in on itself, not one that is healthy and vigorous.

  • On the post: Sorry, But Google Ads Aren't Driving People To Gamble

    Downes ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2008 @ 03:08pm

    Ads

    > An ad on Google is not going to drive someone to gamble

    If advertising didn't work, companies wouldn't buy them. But they do buy them, in droves.

    The simple little causal picture depicted in the quote isn't how advertising works - and nobody thinks it does, except for people who wish to make statements contrary to the obvious.

  • On the post: AT&T Says It May Inject Its Own Ads In Your Surfing… And You'll Like It

    Downes ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2008 @ 03:10pm

    Irony

    The irony is reading this article in my RSS reader with an advertisement injected (by Techdirt? By Feedbuirner? By Google?) into the feed.

  • On the post: Is The iPhone App Kill Switch Really Such A Surprise?

    Downes ( profile ), 12 Aug, 2008 @ 04:47pm

    > if this is such a big deal, don't buy the iPhone. I

    Sure. Just try saying that when they all have a kill switch.