Quote:
Originally Posted by Charbax
Web 2.0 can quite simply manage advance money by proven track record of popularity, quality and number of fans. And that Web 2.0 money is going to be financed through a tax that is much more efficient and which basically is the same as a global standardized subscription plan.
How else would you describe technologies of connected ebooks that have eventually wacom touchscreen interfaces, that pull pages from ebooks wirelessly, that allow the user to rate, comment, debate in realtime on any word of any sentence of any book. How else would you describe it than a technology to measure popularity and quality of online content. Thus measure popularity and quality of artists. Thus decide how much money the artist is entitled in advance for working on the next book.
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Charbax:
With all due respect, I suspect that all of this would be better described as "If implemented, XXX could YYY" and so on. As written, you present this as a forgone conclusion with no room for alternate views, no room for doubt, and an inevitable outcome. This is not a good recipe for convincing a skeptical audience.
I'll also add, from my admittedly libertarian perspective, that the system you have described (especially if connected up to government oversight and tax revenues!) is an authoritarian dictatorship's wet dream! Just think: we can immediately identify exactly who's reading those dangerous free-thinking/right-wing/left-wing/communist/terrorist/socialist/pro-union/anti-union/conservative/liberal books and articles (I'll call them XXX books hereafter). That'll make it really easy to put them up against the wall after the revolution!
And we can identify who's writing those XXX books and articles, and manipulate the system so they don't get paid much if anything -- while the "party approved" artists get the bulk of the money. Old Uncle Joe (Stalin) would be proud!
More seriously, how would you like it if your least favorite politicians (of whichever stripe) were running such a system? Say, George III of England? (I see you've been reading pamphlets by that Thomas Paine fellow... we can
fix that!) How about George W. (win a free trip to Gitmo!) Bush? Or Pol (killing fields) Pot? Or even the current Governor (you've got to pay to play) of Illinois? I'm staying away from the 'H' guy to avoid invoking Godwin's law.
I'll take the admitted evils of the current system in a heartbeat -- it's only money at stake now, not lives.
Xenophon