Rick Rolled Out

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Not to derail the thread or anything, but any free lunch "mythology" is closer to the literal truth than anything that assumes you need to pay for lunch. Money is a social construction -- which is not to say it's unimportant, but merely to say that in a purely literal and physical sense, it is nonexistent or nonsensical. The idea of a free lunch or the absence of it makes no sense unless you assume the existence of money, and furthermore assume a particular use of money, and furthermore assume that money is valuable. What we are getting in the case of rickrolling is that someone is pointing someone else to something -- which is a transaction, but it need not be an economic transaction. A rough equivalent off the internet is that someone points at the Statue of Liberty. Should france get money because someone pointed at the statue of liberty and someone else saw them pointing? It's a terribly broken metaphor, mind you -- but, so is the metaphor that indicating the location of some publically accessible thing without the explicit intent of gaining money from it is a financial transaction.

Someone making a monument may wish that they had gotten money off of it. Whoever manufactured the urinal now signed and in a museum might wish they were getting royalties. That doesn't make it no longer public, and the fact that people want all sorts of things doesn't mean that they are allowed (or should be allowed) to get them.

[MMIX]

your mistake is in thinking that the Internet is owned by anybody. Yes, individual companies may sink of swim, but they are not the whole of the internet. It's not like the sharing of videos is going to cease being profitable and then disappear. If google dumps the company, all that traffic will just be absorbed by the hundreds of video hosting sites which want to be the next youtube. These companies can go ahead and pull the plug on "free entertainment" for all I care. This just hastens their realization of the inevitable truth - that they cannot possibly control how people trade shit. They should be working within the free trade model (and figuring out how to make a buck off of microtransactions and ad revenue) instead of fighting futilely against it.

Yeah, and I go back to my earlier point - maybe PayPal will save the civilised world . . . but between  now and then there are going to be a lot more unhappy Pete Watermans. Interesting that his reaction is to complain to the press rather than institute legal action. Maybe that kind of direct appeal to the public will become the way people look for redress in what is, inevitably, going to be a very different future.
 

[Cramulus]

related:

[MMIX]

Not to derail the thread or anything, but any free lunch "mythology" is closer to the literal truth than anything that assumes you need to pay for lunch. Money is a social construction -- which is not to say it's unimportant, but merely to say that in a purely literal and physical sense, it is nonexistent or nonsensical. The idea of a free lunch or the absence of it makes no sense unless you assume the existence of money, and furthermore assume a particular use of money, and furthermore assume that money is valuable. What we are getting in the case of rickrolling is that someone is pointing someone else to something -- which is a transaction, but it need not be an economic transaction. A rough equivalent off the internet is that someone points at the Statue of Liberty. Should france get money because someone pointed at the statue of liberty and someone else saw them pointing? It's a terribly broken metaphor, mind you -- but, so is the metaphor that indicating the location of some publicly accessible thing without the explicit intent of gaining money from it is a financial transaction.

Someone making a monument may wish that they had gotten money off of it. Whoever manufactured the urinal now signed and in a museum might wish they were getting royalties. That doesn't make it no longer public, and the fact that people want all sorts of things doesn't mean that they are allowed (or should be allowed) to get them.

Money is the most powerful meme we have. The interesting thing about the free-lunch mythology is that it kind of prefigures the kind of post-currency transactions which are being developed like LETS systems and other non-cash economies. The 'price' you pay for a free-lunch may not be money at all it might be agreeing to exposure to ads or the withdrawal of certain currently available products -like for example on-line services like youtube. * I really can't see how that can ever be financially viable - anyone got any idea as to how you might be able to generate  the kind of revenues which would justify Google's  huge investment??

[MMIX]

related:

[Requia ☣]

I really can't see how that can ever be financially viable - anyone got any idea as to how you might be able to generate  the kind of revenues which would justify Google's  huge investment??

The per user cost of running Youtube will fall as bandwidth and servers get cheaper, ads will not.

Though, Youtube doesn't *have* to be profitable.  Google is supposedly trying to be the next Microsoft, and part of how Microsoft maintains its monopoly is putting out products even when those products are unprofitable.  Google may be doing the same thing with Youtube  (As long as they control the main video site, nobody can get a foothold for a new advertising network with the primary video site).

[MMIX]

I really can't see how that can ever be financially viable - anyone got any idea as to how you might be able to generate  the kind of revenues which would justify Google's  huge investment??

The per user cost of running Youtube will fall as bandwidth and servers get cheaper, ads will not.

Though, Youtube doesn't *have* to be profitable.  Google is supposedly trying to be the next Microsoft, and part of how Microsoft maintains its monopoly is putting out products even when those products are unprofitable.  Google may be doing the same thing with Youtube  (As long as they control the main video site, nobody can get a foothold for a new advertising network with the primary video site).

A $1.6Billion loss leader/cockblocker  . . . wow, those guys must have some stones

[Jasper]

Google's trying to take over the world.  Youtube is a useful pawn to that end.  Makes perfect sense to me.

[NotPublished]

I wonder if they'd use Google Ad sense on themselves.

I might read the ToC if I get time, this conversation is very interesting.

[Triple Zero]

That's why the Pirate Bay is running out of a cyberbunker in Russia The Netherlands right now.

Fixed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pirate_bay#Recent_incidents)

[MMIX]

That's why the Pirate Bay is running out of a cyberbunker in Russia The Netherlands right now.

Fixed. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pirate_bay#Recent_incidents)

Yo ho ho and a bottle of Advocaat 



(fixed for incompetent quoting)

[Triple Zero]

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

Google's trying to take over the world.  Youtube is a useful pawn to that end.  Makes perfect sense to me.

From what I understand, the official word on their world domination plan is that it hinges upon the singularity. This is, presumably, why they hire top AI researchers to do pure research for a company that's primarily making web apps.

[Jasper]

Google's trying to take over the world.  Youtube is a useful pawn to that end.  Makes perfect sense to me.

From what I understand, the official word on their world domination plan is that it hinges upon the singularity. This is, presumably, why they hire top AI researchers to do pure research for a company that's primarily making web apps.

Interesting, I'd heard that before but I have no link.  Do you?

[Placid Dingo]

'deserves' was a play on the idea that it took him 16 years to write that song. It was a 'funny.' ignore.


My point was he was being a whiny prat. I don't think anytihng of the 'wants to be free' or whatever, but that's a good looking future that i think few people will object to, provided their bills get paid somehow. So maybe the Youtube model is worth changing, but that's not the point I care for.

I was just a bit cheesed that this guy would compare his writing a song years ago to being a builder in challenging conditions.