Quote:
Originally Posted by mrkai
How many trekkie/trekker types have you know pine for technologies posited in that milieu, without giving any thought whatsoever as to what would happen if they actually existed?
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Maybe, but
Star Trek isn't real, it's a TV show, and TV shows can conveniently ignore things like repercussions. (In fact,
Trek has shown a lot of inconsistency when dealing with money, so it doesn't make for a good example of any kind of economy.)
Real governments have postulated providing wage stipends to artists, allowing them to create freely.
Capitalists have postulated Patrons of the arts, allowing an artist to create and leave someone else to pick up their bills. They have also postulated Advertising subsidies, allowing a company to pay the artist's way in exchange for an opportunity to hawk their product or service alongside the production. (Television loves the last two scenarios.)
So maybe we're all heading for one of the above, as opposed to having customers pay us directly for our creations.
Artists themselves have postulated keeping costs down and selling low, to make their creations more accessible. This has the virtue of making people more willing to pay, because they do not feel they are being ripped off. (That's my strategy, BTW.)
However, if we become a world in which no one trusts anyone else, everyone feels ripped off, and therefore everyone wants everything for free, clearly we won't be using that model anymore.