[10532] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Debating the NII "Truisms"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Russell Nelson)
Sat Feb 26 17:57:53 1994
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 94 21:59 EST
From: "Russell Nelson" <nelson@crynwr.com>
To: "The future Ross Stapleton-Gray" <STAPLETON@bpa.arizona.edu>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
On Sat, 12 Feb 1994 13:02:54 -0700 (MST), "The future Ross Stapleton-Gray" <STAPLETON@bpa.arizona.edu> wrote:
> Courtesy of last Thursday's Advisory Council session (but predating that
> meeting, certainly), we have several statements about the NII that ought
> to get chewed on a bit:
>
> "If intellectual property rights aren't preserved, no one is going
> to put any information on the 'information superhighway.'"
>
> "If information is made free, you'll end up getting what you pay for."
> (sort of a corollary to the first)
Certainly a nice sound bit, but like many of its ilk, it is an
oversimplification. For one, it confounds the two meanings of
"free": no-cost and freedom.
Let me rephrase this and see if people agree with it:
"The value of something is always proportional to the amount
you pay for it."
Now, we've all seen examples that disprove this: Buy something at one
store and find it at another store for less; the excellent find at
the garage sale; the $50 broken toy bought and repaired for $0.50.
Perhaps the better way to state the sound bite is "It's better to pay
more for something if you don't have a good idea what it's worth."
That is to say, sometimes you can substitute money for information.
But that's exactly what Alvin Toffler says in his 1990 book PowerShift,
so don't listen to my bad summary of it -- go read his book.
--
-russ <nelson@crynwr.com> ftp.msen.com:pub/vendor/crynwr/crynwr.wav
Crynwr Software | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support.
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