Why to Not Not Start a Startup

Why to Not Not Start a Startup:

If you don't think you're smart enough to start a startup doing something technically difficult, just write enterprise software. Enterprise software companies aren't technology companies, they're sales companies, and sales depends mostly on effort.

A great quote from Paul Graham. It clearly calls out the major problem with enterprise hardware and software. The primary concern is not a good product. It's a product you can sell. I don't trust sales people to design and write good software. Just like I don't trust my self to perform surgery. When your primary focus is on sales, and your organization is run by sales people, you don't end up with quality products. Especially when your trying to sell to managers who won't actually be getting into the details of implementing what ever it is your selling.

Internet radio may be driven out of business within weeks...

Internet radio may be driven out of business within weeks by a Copyright Royalty Board decision that gives record companies a royalty rate that exceeds 100% of most webcasters' total revenues...

Big music wants to piss of their customers even more by killing useful services that act as great publicity for their artists.

Global warming gap among evangelicals widens - CNN.com

Global warming gap among evangelicals widens - CNN.com:

Why do we even listen to these people?

"We have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children," said the letter, which was signed by prominent religious conservatives such as James Dobson, Don Wildmon, Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer.

These people make decisions believing The Rapture is nearly upon us. Thankfully the decision makers in this story chose the right path. But so much in the above article just defies logic. Abstinence only education does not work. The part that really bugs me is that anything about evangelicals makes the news. I don't care what kind of internal debate they are having. These people don't consider reality when it comes to policy. They should not be listened to.

Technorati Tags: bullshit, politics, religion

Why DRM drives piracy

I won't normally cite BoingBoing link this, since I think everyone who reads here also reads there, but this is to good, and relates to closely to my last post.

DRM leads people to illegal copies. Currently, with TV, the best copies of most shows I can get are from the torrent sites. Full HD versions of every show, sometimes before they even air in my area, or even in the US at all. They are better than what one can get from any other source. What's the incentive to pay money for a worse copy?

Anyway, from BoingBoing:

Why DRM drives piracy:

Cory Doctorow:

Eric Flint, the copyfighting progenitor of the Baen Free Library, has a sterling editorial up on why DRM drives piracy, instead of preventing it.

Yes, it's irritating to authors to see their work posted up on the internet without their permission, especially when the deed is accompanied by a virtual raspberry from a super-annuated juvenile delinquent bragging about it. But the fact remains that the material damage done to authors by such activity is so minimal that it can barely be distinguished from zero—if there's any material damage at all, which I doubt...

Pirates rob bullion ships, they don't rob grain ships. Electronic copyright infringement is something that can only become an "economic epidemic" under certain conditions. Any one of the following:
1) The product they want—electronic texts—are hard to find, and thus valuable.
2) The products they want are high-priced, so there's a fair amount of money to be saved by stealing them.
3) The legal products come with so many added-on nuisances that the illegal version is better to begin with.
Those are the three conditions that will create widespread electronic copyright infringement, especially in combination. Why? Because they're the same three general conditions that create all large-scale smuggling enterprises.
And . . .
Guess what? It's precisely those three conditions that DRM creates in the first place. So far from being an impediment to so-called "online piracy," it's DRM itself that keeps fueling it and driving it forward.

Techdirt: The Economics Of Abundance Is Not A Moral Issue

Techdirt: The Economics Of Abundance Is Not A Moral Issue:

Economics is not a moral issue. It doesn't care about anyone's "right" to make money from their creative output... and neither should you. The idea that anyone automatically has a right to make money from their creative output is wrong. Everyone has the right to try to make money out of their creative output, but if the market isn't there, then there's no money to be made.

I often hear people talking about "stealing" ideas, software, music or movies, but it just doesn't make sense to me. For years the software industry has regularly published info about money lost due to piracy. When really, it was money they didn't gain, and since people were able to get that software without paying, obviously the economic value of those copies was at or near zero.

The real selling point for me with things like music downloads would be convenience and quality. I've stopped buying music from iTunes because of one too many annoyances with the DRM. It killed the value for me, and Jobs does have it right. iTunes is competing with piracy. The reason people buy from them is the convenience. People may be able to get the music free, but their time isn't free. It takes time to find those pirated copies and who knows about the quality and the pain to download them. I'm willing to pay to save time. Sadly with iTunes the DRM kind of kills it for me. So I abstain until that one is worked out.

The same can go for movie downloads. I won't pay $15 to download a movie. And if I have to use some crappy special software with built in DRM and media expiration, it's probably going to be less convenient that just pirating the damn thing. But, if I could pay like $5 for the ease of finding it, the consistent quality and fast downloads, I would do it.

The question is, why should I feel any moral obligation to pay more than something is actually worth, especially when no one is losing anything they already had? People will gravitate towards the best deal for them. Right now the content industry's distribution model isn't the best deal for a lot of people. So they go elsewhere.

The content industry needs to accept that it's not morally wrong for people to seek out the best deal they can. The content industry needs to add new value in the face of declining scarcity.

Technorati Tags: money, politics