Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
3) Therefore digital goods are not physical goods, and efforts to make them act like physical goods are simply going to engender giggles.
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Agreed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
You can only give your book case to one other person. If you give it to me, you cannot give it to your mom and you would not longer have it yourself.
But what if you could just "copy" the book shelf? Not only copy it, but instantly transmit it every where in the world for free (or next to no cost).
Do you think Ikea could still have a business under such a scenario?
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No, Ikea would have been made obsolete. And that
would be a good thing. Things become obsolete when newer and better things replace them. Having Ikea around isn't an end goal in itself; the goal is for everybody to have furniture. Ikea, like other businesses, makes money because people have a need, and they trade dollars in order to have them met. But if everybody could have their needs met without having to give up anything in return, why should that not be done?
Now, the situation with eBooks isn't exactly analogous, because writing books
isn't something that can be done at negligible costs by computers (yet), even if the making and distributing of copies
is. But it's important to keep an eye on the big picture... the picture that isn't a couple of industries going down and an unprofitable profession or two, but a complete revolution in technology that in the long term makes life better for the vast majority of humanity. Casual copying and distribution is what really makes digital files as much a step up from printed books as the printing press was a step up from scribes taking years to hand-copy every book that was made; the rest of the advantages are trivialities.