It's less that I expect things to be free, au contraire. It's more that it's exasperating to have all these many, many minor services that most of the time are not vital to me each ask for money individually.
Imagine you were sold a car not as one, but piece by piece. Need a steering wheel with that? A seat belt? Another seat belt? Oh you need a rear bench too? Another tire, maybe? A few more screws? Brake light too? Or the OS: Would you pay for calc.exe? For the file explorer? The desktop manager?
To me the main problem is that there are way too many minor pieces instead of a whole.
How about - and this is wishful thinking since it would require several big companies to work together, individually it would not help much - if there was ONE big service subscription, let's say $199 annually, and I can use everything (apart from enterprise stuff, that's more). Every piece of software - and also media! - out there. The system checks what I use and how much and distributes the money to the people who made the software and the media.
What those people who think "capitalism!" forget is that the whole process of purchasing is heavily loaded, psychologically. The more individual purchasing decisions, the more you cut it into pieces, the less people buy. The paradox of choice. Decisions decisions! So many more options to make the wrong one! You cannot make the decisions more and more numerous and expect humans to follow into the "perfect market society". "Buying" has a price in addition to the money.
The current system favors those who can offer larger packages. If we had a system and organization who could organize for everyone getting paid from a lump sum and remove the psychological obstacle), this would greatly reduce the disadvantages of smaller players and lead to a much more even playing field. So having a "government" and a "tax" would actually be good market capitalism. The decision would not be "do I buy this" but "do I use this" (but with payment!).
This is especially for things that are not essential, when having to make the decision may (and does) prevent a sale. Since we do have a lot of free alternatives this is what most people turn to.
When it comes to news there's an additional problem: Who reads just one news source? I read very few articles per newspaper, but a lot across many very different sources. There is no payment model for that even if I wanted to.
.
I first came up with the idea while thinking about how open source projects could be paid. An additional thought is that this increases "market activity" by lowering the entry requirements: No need for a full business organisation, pure developers don't need to become (as) business savvy. If they can assure there stuff gets used that automatically leads to income. Also an opportunity to ensure successful projects don't stop, because there is a stream of income associated with heavily used projects - and that without a sales and marketing department. Now this is really just a very rough thought, I saw no use in refining it since I can't make it happen anyway.
Imagine github had a payment model. In this case it wouldn't be so much for "use" as for "support". Imagine people pay a lump sum for library support, and money gets distributed to people creating code and patches and answering support questions. Something that won't ever happen except on a tiny scale driven by very few people when people have to give voluntary contributions to individual projects, the threshold is just too high. This includes merely knowing that the threshold is high, it's self-reinforcing: You know that library doesn't make the developer any money, so you know unless it's a really big package picked up by industry and supported by thousands of people it will probably die within a year even if it looks good and is good quality.
Now going wild (me and my ideas):
I think if we want more capitalism we need to make the entrance easier. Selling something is HARD these days. I say "these days" because I don't think it was so hard 50 years ago when there was less stuff (and more optimism among the populace too?). If basic income is too controversial, how about starting small with such a project? It has the advantage that following this proposal you know that people receiving money actually did something useful, and it would get people paid who today go without, and it would benefit individuals much more than corporations.
I think we need something big, keeping capitalism but tweaking some of the basics for the changed environment we live in. We need to keep incentives to "do something". I see more chances for this to both be accepted and to actually succeed compared to universal basic income.
> ONE big service subscription (...) and I can use everything
This is an intriguing idea. Contributor [1] by Google is an implementation of this concept for content websites. Netflix is an implementation of this for television syndication. Amazon Prime is an implementation of this within its own diverse consumer-facing ecosystem. The MPEG-LA licensing pool or the HDMI licensing pool and various trade associations are implementations within their respective fields. In their respective circles, these work well. So well, in fact, that everyone wants their own slice to control.
I believe that's where the idea of an overarching meta-subscription breaks down: the incentives don't align. When a BigCorp can (theoretically) establish a horizontal and a vertical, and offer a smattering of products for every need while at the same time producing a family-tree of highly integrated offerings (see: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, AT&T+DirectTV, Comcast+NBCUniversal, Verizon+AOL+Yahoo), the remaining players are fighting over pennies of the pie. It's not worth it for them, and it's not worth it for the big players, because they already have the presence, the lock-in, or the content worth paying for.
> How about - and this is wishful thinking since it would require several big companies to work together, individually it would not help much - if there was ONE big service subscription, let's say $199 annually, and I can use everything (apart from enterprise stuff, that's more). Every piece of software - and also media! - out there. The system checks what I use and how much and distributes the money to the people who made the software and the media.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your point, but there is some irony in suggesting bundling app services together when the HN crowd (me included) is so vehemently opposed to bundling in other media, e.g - cable television.
The bundling you are talking about is to create an oligopoly - bundle some things to the exclusion of all others. I think that's very different to my idea. It's something else.
Bundling is more top-down, this is more bottom-up. Bundling is decided by "politics", and this is what you get. In my scenario everything ("the whole world") is included, it is not just a bundle made by someone. And there is raw competition below that layer: People's actual usage determines who gets paid. This also avoids the issue of market distortion (and therefore wrong signaling) of software and/or content that is paid for but not actually used (recent headline: 37% of Steam games that were purchased were never played).
Traditional bundling takes away control, my suggestion is supposed to actually give us more market, at least in my obviously limited and individual mind.
One thing that needs heavy thought and tweaking is the level of granularity. Looking at the two extreme ends:
- World government, all income goes to it and underneath is that proposal. (It would not be "communism" though - money is still there and distributed depending on use.)
- The other extreme: You buy everything piecemeal, even more decisions as today, see care example. Both are obviously extreme.
The optimum is not "somewhere in the middle", it's n-dimensional space, not a linear one.
It's hard to counter what you're saying because you keep editing your comment :) There was even something about Universal Income for a while there! (edit - sorry - I may be getting confused with your parent comment which mentions it)
Suffice to say, whether you're suggesting bundling (a la cable), or now something that seems more like Spotify (revenue share depending on usage), be aware that a market, by definition, will be driven by market forces, and every player will act in their own best interests. You can try very hard to make it very egalitarian with regulations, but the power players will always come out on top.
I only added, I didn't remove anything. The UBI stuff still is there - in the top comment. Note that I'm not voting for or against it, I merely mention it for comparison. I also clearly mark that section:
> Now going wild (me and my ideas):
You write:
> now something that seems more like Spotify
No it doesn't. What I speak of does not exist.
As for your second paragraph, I have no idea what possible connection those trite generalities have with anything I wrote. It seems to me you just like being argumentative, or you like reading into other people's ideas. I don't have the feeling that your response is a response to me - but to what happened in your own head when you read my comments.
> egalitarian
This supports my suspicion that you actually respond to yourself, i.e. to the interpretation in your head, instead of my comment. "Egalitarian" isn't part of my comment or idea.
- A fixed price means that light users subsidize heavy users. Why should someone who only uses apps for a couple of minutes pay the same as someone who uses them all day?
- Mobile OSs are already intrusive enough, but your system requires that everyone be spied to record how much they use each app, and can't allow the user to disable or tamper with that.
- Many people I know are struggle to pay for Internet access; they certainly can't afford to spend $200/yr on "apps". Should they be cut off altogether?
- Right now, if I make a more complex app for a niche market, or one that requires expensive backend support, I can charge more to compensate. Under the bundling model, my app will get the same per minute as a flashlight app (and probably less overall, since complex apps are usually used less time, despite often saving more time). How can you convince these app developers to continue to develop them?
> A fixed price means that light users subsidize heavy users.
That is an orthogonal problem that we already have and it has nothing to do with my idea. You can solve it individually by choosing a different pricing model, just as we already do. The point is not to charge for each tiny piece but in bulk, and to distribute the money according to actual usage. The pricing is something entirely different, I have nothing at all to say about it. The $199 was an example.
The monitoring argument is valid, but it is no different from what we already have, nor do I see the difficulty - just add an opt-out and let individuals choose to go with the "pay for each item separately" model. No big deal, choice is good. I have no desire to establish "the one system (to replace them all)". Competition between ideas and systems is IMHO essential, I would not want a system that is imposed on everyone, but one that can be chosen.
> Many people I know are struggle to pay for Internet access;
That too is no different from the problems we already have on all levels of society and also worldwide, and the same solutions (or just not solving it, as we often do) apply. The concept as I laid it out has no "social" component, only one that increases commerce. Not because I don't care about social, but that's just something my idea can't tackle.
I did read; if I misunderstood, I apologize, but I still don't see how my objection is invalid.
You talked about having "ONE big service subscription, let's say $199 annually" which gave full access. How can such a fixed-price bundle not lead to light users subsidizing heavy users?
> Imagine you were sold a car not as one, but piece by piece. Need a steering wheel with that? A seat belt? Another seat belt? Oh you need a rear bench too? Another tire, maybe? A few more screws? Brake light too?
This is exactly how it works nowadays. You're sold the basic version of a car for a price and everything you want on top costs. A lot. Better headlights? Electrical trunk opener? Auto-adjusting curve lights? You can basically spend twice as much on every car if you get it in its luxury version.
> The system checks what I use and how much
So, how would you solve this: I have a small utility app. It provides value that is not tied to the usage time. On the contrary: It is designed to be used only a few minutes per day. I'd make much less money than, say, the Netflix app, which you'd consume hours upon hours every day.
The only solution I see is: Value based pricing. And this is exactly what's happening right now, since value is a highly emotional and subjective thing.
> if there was ONE big service subscription, let's say $199 annually, and I can use everything (apart from enterprise stuff, that's more). Every piece of software - and also media! - out there
There is no single company that can do this, and definitely not a small one. This has to include "most of what is", either in a category (like "software") or across several (like "software, multimedia, news"). One party alone doing it is something else, and having one company at the top distributing money to people doing the work is not different than what we have and what is the dream of founders, to "own (and milk) the platform".
Imagine you were sold a car not as one, but piece by piece. Need a steering wheel with that? A seat belt? Another seat belt? Oh you need a rear bench too? Another tire, maybe? A few more screws? Brake light too? Or the OS: Would you pay for calc.exe? For the file explorer? The desktop manager?
To me the main problem is that there are way too many minor pieces instead of a whole.
How about - and this is wishful thinking since it would require several big companies to work together, individually it would not help much - if there was ONE big service subscription, let's say $199 annually, and I can use everything (apart from enterprise stuff, that's more). Every piece of software - and also media! - out there. The system checks what I use and how much and distributes the money to the people who made the software and the media.
What those people who think "capitalism!" forget is that the whole process of purchasing is heavily loaded, psychologically. The more individual purchasing decisions, the more you cut it into pieces, the less people buy. The paradox of choice. Decisions decisions! So many more options to make the wrong one! You cannot make the decisions more and more numerous and expect humans to follow into the "perfect market society". "Buying" has a price in addition to the money.
The current system favors those who can offer larger packages. If we had a system and organization who could organize for everyone getting paid from a lump sum and remove the psychological obstacle), this would greatly reduce the disadvantages of smaller players and lead to a much more even playing field. So having a "government" and a "tax" would actually be good market capitalism. The decision would not be "do I buy this" but "do I use this" (but with payment!).
This is especially for things that are not essential, when having to make the decision may (and does) prevent a sale. Since we do have a lot of free alternatives this is what most people turn to.
When it comes to news there's an additional problem: Who reads just one news source? I read very few articles per newspaper, but a lot across many very different sources. There is no payment model for that even if I wanted to.
.
I first came up with the idea while thinking about how open source projects could be paid. An additional thought is that this increases "market activity" by lowering the entry requirements: No need for a full business organisation, pure developers don't need to become (as) business savvy. If they can assure there stuff gets used that automatically leads to income. Also an opportunity to ensure successful projects don't stop, because there is a stream of income associated with heavily used projects - and that without a sales and marketing department. Now this is really just a very rough thought, I saw no use in refining it since I can't make it happen anyway.
Imagine github had a payment model. In this case it wouldn't be so much for "use" as for "support". Imagine people pay a lump sum for library support, and money gets distributed to people creating code and patches and answering support questions. Something that won't ever happen except on a tiny scale driven by very few people when people have to give voluntary contributions to individual projects, the threshold is just too high. This includes merely knowing that the threshold is high, it's self-reinforcing: You know that library doesn't make the developer any money, so you know unless it's a really big package picked up by industry and supported by thousands of people it will probably die within a year even if it looks good and is good quality.
Now going wild (me and my ideas):
I think if we want more capitalism we need to make the entrance easier. Selling something is HARD these days. I say "these days" because I don't think it was so hard 50 years ago when there was less stuff (and more optimism among the populace too?). If basic income is too controversial, how about starting small with such a project? It has the advantage that following this proposal you know that people receiving money actually did something useful, and it would get people paid who today go without, and it would benefit individuals much more than corporations.
I think we need something big, keeping capitalism but tweaking some of the basics for the changed environment we live in. We need to keep incentives to "do something". I see more chances for this to both be accepted and to actually succeed compared to universal basic income.