Re: More Courtney, extrapolations...

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From: Yak Wax (yakwax@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jun 14 2000 - 15:59:27 PDT


Stephen D. Williams wrote:

> > Filtering is just creating new information - new
> > *frictionless* information.
>
> You can can build high-traffic websites
> (Slashdot.org)

What worries me is that a lot of the high-traffic
websites that *can* make money from advertising are
mainly displaying adverts from low-traffic websites
that can't; it's like some bizarre pyramid scheme.
Also, Distributed-Slashdot (without the ads) isn't far
away (it's just collaborative filtering).

> publications (zillions of magazines), and
> copyrighted compilations (The Onion books, Linux
> How-To books).

Print? We're just waiting on better displays. (And
better OCR.)

I'm sure there's money to be had, but it's not a long
term investment. The Internet, and the distribution
of power it brings with it, has been obvious for 30-40
years to anyone interested. This whole thing would've
been far more interesting if an open source project
beat Napster to it. Then we could of had "the people
vs. Metallica" instead of "Napster vs. Metallica" -
and then "the people vs. the government", followed by
the big "what exactly is democracy again?" debate.

> The tip model was cool.

I often find myself - having just read a good book -
thinking "I only paid $x for that!" I'm sure we all
know authors we feel we owe a lot to, and I'm sure we
all know a few who we'd like to bill for wasted time.

Of course, the only reason we need to pay for
information is to keep artists clothed and fed.
Personally I'd rather not; art is about expression,
and we have too many people expressing what it's like
to be an artist. Let them get real jobs.

--Wax

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