Really kinda off blogging this week but just began reading an article where the author’s daughter won’t pay for magazines, newspapers, music etc.
Curious,and just in case you don’t want to read the longest intro in the world where I actually begin to understand exactly why I reacted so vehemently last week, would you pay for the above–especially the etc?
Yes, I do pay for “content.” It took someone’s work to produce that. If someday I do the same, I would want others to support my billiant endeavors the same.
Now, the fact that some of those things have really infated or sketchy pricing models is another topic for another time.
I don’t - I’m way too freaking cheap!
I don’t subscribe to any websites where I have to pay for content. Part if that decision would be $. Between DSL, buying computers, software… Anyway, I do buy online eBooks though.
My husband and I (sounding very royal here!) work in an industry where intellectual property is all we have to sell - lighting design and theatre. If people take what we create without paying for it, then we don’t eat. Simple as that. So I always try to pay for other people’s intellectual input.
You don’t pay for the ‘thing’. You pay for the TIME a person has put in to create that thing, be it a piece of music, a software programme, a theatre piece or a lighting design.
That fits in with my reiki principles too … the reiki itself is free. But my time is worth something.
Dear Pia:
Yes. Of course I pay for content. In the digital age, one thing that has happened is that anything that can be articulated as zeroes and ones– movies, songs, newspapers– ends up online and thus becomes downloadable and email-able. I think newspapers made a grave mistake in the mid-90s by refusing to charge for content online; they created the expectation among a new generation that news content should be free, and now no one under 35 reads the paper anymore.
Look at the Wall Street Journal. You want it online, you have to subscribe. And people do. Indeed I do. (THey keep trying to sell me the paper version and I keep telling them that I already subscribe… online. But kudos to them for offering a product I find worth the money to pay for.)
Would you steal a stack of your favroite book from Colisium Books and give them out? No? Well, what makes it OK to (for example) dupe your favorite CD and give it to your friends? The mode of technology making that possible (and democratizing the means of doing so) doesn’t somehow alter the immutable morality of the thing. Stealing is still stealing, even when it gets easier.
My mom asked me to burn her copies of my k.d. lang CDs. She thought I was nuts when I showed up with new store bought copies for her.
Are you as sexy as your blog?
Pia, sign me up.
I never pay for content, but only because I’m broke. If I had more money, I would pay for a lot of things - writing, art, music. The intellectual property and hard work of the talented. I would probably pay for more things than I would have time to enjoy because I believe those who work hard and put in the time to entertain or enlighten should always be paid.
I pay for everything…..except men.
I’s pay, especially for the etc.