Comments on: Information Wants To Be Half Price http://innocuous.org/articles/2008/01/12/information-wants-to-be-half-price/ Richard Tibbetts on Various Topics Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:35:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Jeremy Brown http://innocuous.org/articles/2008/01/12/information-wants-to-be-half-price/comment-page-1/#comment-12 Jeremy Brown Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:43:29 +0000 http://new.innocuous.org/index.php/2008/01/12/information-wants-to-be-half-price/#comment-12 Carl --- the success of iTunes as a music store suggests that people are willing to pay for the convenience of a well-organized, legal downloads-store even when it *does* have DRM. Tibbetts --- as Salon is reporting it, I'm actually getting less time with the rental for my $4 from iTunes than I do from the neighborhood store. Even a Blockbuster new release I get to keep for a couple of days, and the mom-and-pop shop will give me 5 days for pretty much everything. Even if its more like the Amazon/Tivo Unbox service --- you can keep the unwatched video for a long time, but once you start watching, you've got 24 hours to finish --- it still doesn't give me what I get from a physical rental. Information wants to be half-price --- and information wants to be at least as featureful as the media it used to ship on. Carl — the success of iTunes as a music store suggests that people are willing to pay for the convenience of a well-organized, legal downloads-store even when it *does* have DRM.

Tibbetts — as Salon is reporting it, I’m actually getting less time with the rental for my $4 from iTunes than I do from the neighborhood store. Even a Blockbuster new release I get to keep for a couple of days, and the mom-and-pop shop will give me 5 days for pretty much everything. Even if its more like the Amazon/Tivo Unbox service — you can keep the unwatched video for a long time, but once you start watching, you’ve got 24 hours to finish — it still doesn’t give me what I get from a physical rental.

Information wants to be half-price — and information wants to be at least as featureful as the media it used to ship on.

]]> By: Carl Alexander http://innocuous.org/articles/2008/01/12/information-wants-to-be-half-price/comment-page-1/#comment-11 Carl Alexander Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:51:25 +0000 http://new.innocuous.org/index.php/2008/01/12/information-wants-to-be-half-price/#comment-11 I have a half-written essay somewhere, the thesis of which is that the entertainment industry will continue to flail until it recognizes that the only way it can beat bittorrent is by <em>competing</em> with bittorrent. For the vast majority of the stuff I want to watch, I would happily pay a buck an hour, maybe even two, to download DRM-free, nonproprietary-format files at as low as a quarter of HD resolution. Even if I could get the same program or movie via bittorrent: It would be worth the price to me to not have to wonder whether I was downloading a virus vector, or getting a crappy capture, or wasting bandwidth on a file I can't play --- and to feel like at least some of my money is going to the artists whose work I'm enjoying. I have a half-written essay somewhere, the thesis of which is that the entertainment industry will continue to flail until it recognizes that the only way it can beat bittorrent is by competing with bittorrent. For the vast majority of the stuff I want to watch, I would happily pay a buck an hour, maybe even two, to download DRM-free, nonproprietary-format files at as low as a quarter of HD resolution. Even if I could get the same program or movie via bittorrent: It would be worth the price to me to not have to wonder whether I was downloading a virus vector, or getting a crappy capture, or wasting bandwidth on a file I can’t play — and to feel like at least some of my money is going to the artists whose work I’m enjoying.

]]>