A student sitting on a bench next to me on Harvard Square is holding an iPad, complaining that he can’t properly see the screen under the bright sun. I inquire about the gadget.
I: So what do you use it for?
The Student: Look I got six thousand comics here. I also have my textbooks.
I: Are there textbooks compatible with the iPad?
The Student: No, I pirated them.
I: And how do you load them into the iTunes?
The Student. The pirated textbooks are in PDF, I convert them with a scrip into an Open Source format and then it loads right into the iTunes. I save about $700 on textbooks… Good I am not working at the Publisher. I also hacked my iPhone so I can connect directly to the Internet through the iPhone.
You don’t even need to be a Harvard student to figure how this works. What happens when the entire generation grows up with the expectation that any soft product is free and only tangible products or food cost money? It’s a monster that consumes itself, not even an Uroboros.
Further reading:
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
part of the solution is to have these books, videos, recordings, available legally, for a fair price, at the same convenience level as they are currently available ilegally. right now (with the exception of music on itunes), it is easier and more convenient to download pirated material then to buy and pay for legal material.
Issac, you talk a lot about “convenience” (rss, etc.). This has everything to do with your habits and little to do with this issue.
How is this case different from new drugs going off patent 7-11 years after they come to market.? The drug companies still make a fine profit on their research and development, and they continue to work as hard as they can to find new drugs. Most people can’t hack anything. I have no data, but I would guess Apple will make back all the costs associated with the iPad within a year, and the rest is pure profit. The market seems to think this way. Apple stock is at 248, up from 195 in three months.
Also, would you comment on the Salesforce model, and are such companies also in danger?
I have been wring about this for a year. Was I completely misunderstood?
WADR you have been writing how the internet is bad for the creative class, content providers. You said, as I understood you, that the people who controlled the transmission aparatus, Google, the computer companies were making all the money. Apple is a distribution co., something like a gas pipeline. The latter make money even when the gas companies lose money. Apple is expected to earn $14 for the 2011 year, vs. $9 for 2009. I would agree the textbook publishing companies, like the newspapers and magazines are facing hard times.
You may have discussed this issue in one of your posts, and my apologies for not remembering what you said.
ej, thank you.
(strains to raise hand at the back of class)
Could it be that factors of production are simply re-valorized as the creatives who make content for the shiny front end of gadgets become the new happy serf – relegated to the same voluntaristic economy and kitsch of the wood worker at a county fair (supported by rich parents and benefactors). :. Subjective meaning is splintered and consumed by select demographics, objective meaning becomes kapital – but as with G-d we dont yet have the language to describe that phenomena correctly in public, so conversation is somewhat stilted.
Back on earth, utopian static equilibrium models do not apply any more, but do not worry because the creative classes do not traditionally wage war in times of crisis.