Journal: News & Comment

I'm happy to pay if I can do what I want with what I buy

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This piece is quite long, but you should read it. Excerpts:

Here are the two most important things to know about computers and the Internet:

1. A computer is a machine for rearranging bits
2. The Internet is a machine for moving bits from one place to another very cheaply and quickly

Any new medium that takes hold on the Internet and with computers will embrace these two facts, not regret them.

and...

What [business analyst firm] Mako is saying is that just because you bought the CD doesn't mean that you should expect to have the ability to listen to it on your MP3 player, and just because it plays on your MP3 player is no reason to expect it to run as a ringtone. I wonder how they feel about alarm clocks that will play a CD to wake you up in the morning? Is that strangling the nascent "alarm tone" market?

The essential argument is that, in the long run, denying the nature of the Internet, and preventing people and companies from working with things in new ways, does no one—not even those who are pushing those ideas—any good.

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