What about a new IT economy?
I was thinking, as so many apps get pirated these day, as pirating is just about more normal than buying something:
what about the idea of making everything free, (software at least - as long as you download it), but relaying the source of money to the base: the ISP.
The ISP, a person's internet connection (through which pirating tends to take place, if it does take place), is the only 'fixed cost' in the web-world. Of course rates vary and can not be seen 'per user' (especially in LANs as in university/companies). Refinement may be in place.
But what if there were a central authority, keeping track of all the apps, the billable man hours (maybe: KLC, kilo-lines of code), and the amount of users (this by demanding free registration, or even counting downloads). There you could calculate the amount of money one app is entitled to.
The ISP's would put a forfatary amount of money (based on # of users) in a community (worldwide, as the web is) 'jar'. This money would then be redistributed to software makers.
One never has to relinquish privacy: you can register anonymously. AND: all programming will be paid for. (the small ones, which are very easy to come by, as well).
Now, as all apps can be got freely (and through fairly high bandwidth canals) the use of the illegal channels will diminish and maybe even disappear (except for mp3, video but f*ck them: they do make enough money as it is).
Any thoughts?
what about the idea of making everything free, (software at least - as long as you download it), but relaying the source of money to the base: the ISP.
The ISP, a person's internet connection (through which pirating tends to take place, if it does take place), is the only 'fixed cost' in the web-world. Of course rates vary and can not be seen 'per user' (especially in LANs as in university/companies). Refinement may be in place.
But what if there were a central authority, keeping track of all the apps, the billable man hours (maybe: KLC, kilo-lines of code), and the amount of users (this by demanding free registration, or even counting downloads). There you could calculate the amount of money one app is entitled to.
The ISP's would put a forfatary amount of money (based on # of users) in a community (worldwide, as the web is) 'jar'. This money would then be redistributed to software makers.
One never has to relinquish privacy: you can register anonymously. AND: all programming will be paid for. (the small ones, which are very easy to come by, as well).
Now, as all apps can be got freely (and through fairly high bandwidth canals) the use of the illegal channels will diminish and maybe even disappear (except for mp3, video but f*ck them: they do make enough money as it is).
Any thoughts?
Comments
As for the rest of software, they basically have fallen into the same trap as the music industry. Everyone knows how little it costs them nowaways to develop and deliver their software. Everyone knows that for the most part the improvements have very little benefit and for the most part they are producing the same stuff year after year. Additionally the cost for these same materials have not gone down over time, they have stayed the same or gone up.
Software developers have gone back to the well too many times and now are really realizing it is dry.
Most videogames for computers are going to be run on $400-700 PC's. How many people are going to buy $40-50 games for these machines? Or spend a few hundred on Photoshop, or anything else?
I myself only shop the $10 bins for software. I recently picked up Star Trek Elite Force and have had a grand old time with it. It is just like with music, if they lowered the price and opened up the amount of people willing to buy, they likely would get a better return. However instead they have a diminishing return and prefer to start calling their core market criminals.
Nick