[CLUE-Tech] Yet another reason to use Linux exCLUEsively

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Tue, 26 Jun 2001, grant wrote:

> They have realized that intellectual property is unlike other
> property.  Unlike a car or anything physical, many people can use it at
> once, and it never wears out.  These remove the concept of scarcity from
> the suply and demand equation that drives out economy.  Therefore we have
> artificial scarcity (license agreements that prohibit multiple
> users)  This was not enough.  When the products were "good enough" the
> problem of them never wearing out reared its ugly head.  This brought out
> the software subscription model.  Unfortunately for software vendors,
> distribution chanels are no longer so exclusive due to the pervasive
> nature of the internet and other high speed networks.  Now that the cat is
> out of the bag as far as people thinking that you buy software, then use
> it as long as you like, it will be very hard to switch to a subscription
> model.  The only way to pull it off is to use the fact that hardware does
> eventually wear out.  The new hardware must be incompatible with the old
> software to force purchases, however, this opens up the field to
> competition.  If you own the whole market, want to continue to do so
> without any possibility for competition, and want a continuous revenue
> stream, the only chance you have is to create new and compelling features,
> or make software that wears out (maybe decays over time and does not
> allow a re-install).

Unfortunately, Microsoft has been relatively successful at convincing
people that they "need" to upgrade - and, of course, if they can't
persuade you to upgrade they'll simply make future versions incompatible.
I can't blame Microsoft entirely for that, though - the other software
vendors like Adobe and Macromedia (notice that the list gets shorter
every year?) also like to keep people on the upgrade cycle. 

At the rate that Microsoft is alienating their users, partners and
OEM customers I wouldn't be surprised to see Linux and the Mac OS gain
a huge chunk of the desktop market two years from now. I still wish
someone would put out a decent Linux-based appliance for email,
browsing and word processing so I could buy one for my Mom & grandparents...

Take care,

Zonker
--
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier -=- jbrockmeier at earthlink.net
http://www.DissociatedPress.net/
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"I'll sleep when I'm dead." -- Warren Zevon