what happens if SOPA passes?

omg @ that swizz thing

things bankrolled by advertising: Google, Facebook, every news site, television, rock bands, rap acts, films, Pitchfork etc etc

So it's good for who that they all punish their paying/legitimate customers by forcing them to watch advertising that the pirates don't have to watch?

I think it's hilarious that the "people WANT to pay for things, if only we could figure out HOW" angle is essentially unchanged (and just as wrong) as when it was first proffered at the turn of the century.

that's not the argument here. the argument is that the free version is better than the paid version. i'd sure as hell pay for a service like Oink if one existed!

I think it's hilarious that the "people WANT to pay for things, if only we could figure out HOW" angle is essentially unchanged (and just as wrong) as when it was first proffered at the turn of the century.

The turn of the 20th century? That's the century that made the content industry rich by selling squillions of records, newspapers, books, magazines, audio tapes, video tapes, CDs, DVDs and video games, yeah?

People clearly don't want to pay for things. If something's free and convenient, they take it.

If you stopped generalising you would begin to understand out point.

Shakey, read this (even just the headline will do): http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/netflix-traffic/

If something's free and convenient, they take it.

If something's free and a bit of a hassle vs cheap and convenient it's totally not so clear what people will do.

Like there are entire luxury industries predicated on the fact that people will pay a bit more for convenience. Like you could give away blocks of cheese and some people would still buy grated cheese in bags.

Downloading from iTunes is in a lot of cases a lot less hassle than finding a good-quality torrent w/loads of seeders. If you don't know how to torrent or how to evaluate them, the margin is even wider.

So it's good for who that they all punish their paying/legitimate customers by forcing them to watch advertising that the pirates don't have to watch?

you're missing my point entirely. is Google punishing you? the NY Times? Pitchfork? My point is that all of these services can't make money providing content or even a service, they make all their money from advertising. advertising has become a foundational sector of the global economy, so much so that basic infrastructural and cultural institutions cannot even exist without it. I'm not saying this is a good thing (on the contrary I think it's an absolutely idiotic and horrible thing) but it is a reality.

I think it is a good thing that google is free

lol

Netflix streaming movies now fill more of the United States’ internet tubes than any other service, including peer-to-peer file sharing, which long held the top spot

also was this article before or after Netflix totally shot themselves in the foot with the increased fees thing.

Netflix not exactly a thriving company/economic model at this point, iirc

Downloading from iTunes is in a lot of cases a lot less hassle than finding a good-quality torrent w/loads of seeders.

you know what's even easier is just downloading a zip file of megaupload or mediafire

OFF megaupload or mediafire

bemoaning advertising while complaining about the weird but quite capitalist music biz at the same time is strange to me. do you think the pre-internet music business could have existed without its various forms of advertisement?

about the death of* the weird

Netflix not exactly a thriving company/economic model at this point, iirc

Absolutely, but it indicates that there are still a hell of a lot of people willing to pay for content.

you know what's even easier is just downloading a zip file of megaupload or mediafire

finding them can be tough especially when there are a bunch of links full of trojans

My point is that all of these services can't make money providing content or even a service, they make all their money from advertising.

Of those three, only the NY Times have tried to charge, and they made a mess of that. I don't think the Times paywall is a great idea, but it's apparently washing its face. I would pay some hefty money for ad-free GMail too, if only they'd ask me.

That's ignoring the ones who are trying to sell a lower-quality product and then say "you can't sell it, people want free stuff, we need to rely on ads, that we will force them to watch [and make our quality worse, so that people will pirate even more, and remove the ads, which we rely on because we sell low-quality alternatives]"

so yeah, they make all their money from advertising, but that's in no way an inescapable law of digital economics or something.

man i have been craving sopapillas constantly the last few days because of this stupid fuckin legislation

is Google punishing you? the NY Times? Pitchfork? My point is that all of these services can't make money providing content or even a service, they make all their money from advertising. advertising has become a foundational sector of the global economy, so much so that basic infrastructural and cultural institutions cannot even exist without it.

Yes, and it's only as powerful as the number of people who respond to it. In your example, if everyone installs ad blocking software and the advertisers don't get a return on their investment, the advertising stops.

Worth bringing up, I guess, that the various industries are even in a position to complain because they famously pushed through massively favorable copyright extension legislation some years ago. I'm curious to know how they'll deal in, say, the UK when suddenly all these monster catalogs go public domain.

Oh, wait, they pulled a fast one there, too: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/arts/music/european-union-extends-copyright-on-recordings.html

And also because the VCR saved them, after them trying to kill it too.

Which is another way of saying they screwed up (which we all know) by not grabbing onto MP3s as the logical revenue-stream successor to CDs. They broke the cycle by myopically focusing on CD dough.

Yeah, because they could control CDs end-to-end but had no control over MP3s.

In your example, if everyone installs ad blocking software and the advertisers don't get a return on their investment, the advertising stops.

uh that is not how Google and Facebook make their advertising/marketing money

advertisers/marketers pay those firms to mine their data, in turn using that information to target consumers etc. it's not a straight eyeballs = $$$ scenario

again you are attacking advertising while complaining about the demise of a certain capitalist sector

er sector's the wrong word, but you know what I mean

I'm just describing how advertising works. I don't like it but it is what it is. I dunno what complaining I've done re: the demise of the music industry - I mean think it's sad that artists essentially make less money these days, across the board, but I don't hold any particular love for the music industry, which was fairly monstrous in its heyday and had plenty of horrible practices.

I see what you mean Shakey but I don't know whether data miners are advertising something per se.

http://static.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/MjAxMS0xZWMwMDAyNDU0Y2MzMWU0.png

i just thought that was funny, not directed really anywhere

I mean yes data mining leads to targeted advertising, but advertising is advertising, and all of it requires people's attention in order to survive xxp

this thread is a lot more fun after i gave up caring and just decided to watch shakey and frogbs and iatee circle around each in a festive dance of faulty logic and useless generalizations

your welcome

bad spelling, too

i'm not sure how much data mining is actually being sold vs being a scare story for potential future sales. Like where on FB can I go to give them money to target single white guys aged 24 who eat pot noodles and didn't make new friends at Christmas? They let you do that only if you're targetting ads which they will then serve -- they definitely don't return you a list of users to do anything with.

same deal w/google. They mine on your behalf, but they never give you the data. Your only way of interacting with the mining is to buy a display ad

I'm just describing how advertising works. I don't like it but it is what it is.

you consider one piece of 20th century capitalism to be objectively evil but you're sad about the death of another piece of 20th century capitalism, when really they are mixed together and you have to look at the macro picture and not just isolate things you like and don't like.

yes these things are all intertwined.

I'm glad we agree

this just in: if you enjoy buying free range tomatoes you are also required to enjoy purchasing products from big pharm. and firearms.

or am i missing some crucial nuance in your argument here

huh? my argument was that advertising was a big part of a certain business model that shakey's sad to see disappearing, but he also 'hates advertising, man'.

pretty sure those things are totally seperable tho. i like television but do not enjoy advertising on television, it seems like you are saying that i shouldnt be able to like television then.

Indonesia has gone to imaginative extremes to try to stop commuters from illegally riding the roofs of trains – hosing down the scofflaws with red paint, threatening them with dogs and appealing for help from religious leaders.

Now the authorities have an intimidating and possibly even deadly new tactic: Suspending rows of grapefruit-sized concrete balls to rake over the top of trains as they pull out of stations, or when they go through rail crossings.

Authorities hope the balls – which could deliver serious blows to the head – will be enough to deter defiant roof riders.

“We’ve tried just about everything, even putting rolls of barbed wire on the roof, but nothing seems to work,” said Mateta Rizahulhaq, a spokesman for the state-owned railway company PT Kereta Api. “Maybe this will do it.”

Trains that crisscross Indonesia on poorly maintained tracks left behind by Dutch colonizers six decades ago usually are packed with passengers, especially during the rush hour.

Hundreds seeking to escape the overcrowded carriages clamor to the top. Some ride high to avoid paying for a ticket. Others do so because – despite the dangers, with dozens killed or injured every year – “rail surfing” is fun.

The first dozen or so balls were installed Tuesday hundreds of metres from the entrance of a train station just outside the capital, Jakarta. Painted silver, the balls hung by chains from what looked like the frame of a giant soccer goal.

But there was a glitch: the chains were too short, leaving a gap of about 40 centimetres between the balls and the roofs of the passing train carriages. Mr. Rizahulhaq said adjustments would be made.

If successful, the project will be expanded, with balls also set up near railway crossings.

Asked about worries that the balls could hurt or even kill those who defy the roof-riding ban, he insisted that wasn’t really his problem.

“They don’t have to sit on top,” he said. “And we’ve already told them, if the train is full, go to the office. We will be happy to reimburse their tickets.”

The commuters, known as “Atappers” or “Roofers,” meanwhile are hardcore in their determination to stay on top.

“I was really scared when I first heard about these balls,” said Mulyanto, a 27-year-old shopkeeper, who rides between his hometown of Bogor and Jakarta almost every day for work. “It sounds like it could be really dangerous.”

“But I don’t think it’ll last long,” he said. “They’ve tried everything to keep us from riding ... in the end we always win.”

“We like it up there, it’s windy, really nice.”

Many of the roof riders – and regular passengers – say the main problem lies with Indonesia’s dilapidated railway system. There are not enough trains to meet demand, they say. And there are constant delays in service.

“People have jobs! They can’t be late,” said Parto, a trader at the Jakarta stock exchange, who can usually be found sitting inside. “If the train is late, they’ll do whatever they have to.”

Several years ago, paint guns were set up to spray those riding on the top of carriages so authorities could identify and round up the guilty travelers. But roof riders destroyed the equipment soon after. The exhortations of clerics didn’t work. Neither did the dogs.

At one point, police decided to do the expected: arrest the culprits. But their officers were pelted with rocks and they gave up.

no it's more like if you were complaining about the death of the television cable business but were also like "and I wish they would just get rid of all those damn ads"

xp

but ads do not directly subsidise the traditional music industry. i mean if you are trying to say that if you dislike ads you have to reject things that are advertised uh basically you dont get to buy anything?

a festive dance of faulty logic and useless generalizations

board description

the record label biz model involved big companies that paid $ to advertise music so that consumers would decide to spend their $ buying record x or record y. my only point is that it wasn't a small part of the business model shakey's mourning.

xp

there are still a hell of a lot of people willing to pay for content.

― Autumn Almanac (Schlafsack), Wednesday, January 18, 2012 3:25 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that may be true, but it elides a crucial "at this point." relative to 20-30 years ago and adjusted for inflation, fewer people are willing to regularly shell out substantial sums for books, movies, music, newspapers and magazines. and we're only seeing the tip of the free exchange of informationberg.