I want stuff that is truely free without the need to be subjected to exploitation, money grubbing and spyware. Think of how much we continue to pay for MS and Adobe’s text editiors when these parasites were paid off a long time ago. I love stuff that disables parasitism. I do not believe in tanstaffl, without parasites almost everything is free! Please bring us a string and conflict of interest free (means no ads or sponsorship of any kind) Yelp killer and make it free- no ads no stupid business behind it- a popcorn time kills Yelp story. When something can be done for free it should be. Tragedy of the commons is pure idiocy.
I think my bitterness toward yelp came from two places- 1. Sponsored placement and similar ranking games (not sure where that stands today) and 2. their manipulative insistance that the end user download their spyware app, they tease but censor eveything unless they can treat you like property- ala F book. You can sometimes profile the level of psycopathy in a company in the first few seconds with an online product, with yelp there is the sense right off that a good percentage of the staff isn’t ethical enough to be involved in a project that takes up mind share. Look at FB, first we pay ISP, which is increasingly questionable and then many people pay FB with attention stealing ad rape and loss of privacy and sale of their private info.
Tanstafl @Warren nothing is free. You always pay for it somehow. Even FOSS isn’t free. It’s paid for in labor and donations. Maidsafe isn’t free. Linux isn’t free. Nothing is free. If you’re not paying in money you’ll be paying in some other way so the question is how?
If you had a “yelp killer” on maidsafe and everyone used it it would be paid for by the rewards garnered by the network and would be paying the network by virtue of it being valuable content to the network. Nothing is free!
Food isn’t free Warren, you have to grow it. It costs sun, water, earth and time, even if you grow it yourself and it doesn’t cost money it still costs resources. Nothing in nature based on real life physics is free. Conservation of mass and energy and all that. Where does the stuff you produce come from? It has to come from somewhere. Stuff doesn’t just spontaneously appear.
Now I agree the effort of copying a program is near zilch. But CREATING a program takes time and effort and those doing said creation require support while doing it. Therefore software development requires funding of some kind so that software developers can have beds to sleep in and food in their bellies if nothing else. Developers still need to eat like everyone else.
I agree that trying to turn software into a finite product is an exercise in insanity. However that does not mean that information of any kind is free. Even a simple book isn’t free. Ask any writer: it takes time and effort to write, especially to learn how to write well. So even if information as a product doesn’t work information as a SERVICE does. And regardless of one’s motive that does not negate the value of said service or the resources required to perform it.
But it is in giving that we receive- gifting economy now dammit!
And SAFE’s model aside from that, if it be made to work is a close 2nd. So gifting economy on SAFE.
What I love about the little I know about a gifting economy is it is so direct. Its like before, if you wanted a steak chase it down and bite it on the rump. No going in a triange, no ritual first having to fiddle with paper and run around triangle can be gamed in endless ways
I totally agree with you on the direct action bit. Whether it’s giving or barter or whatever people should be able to interact directly without some beaurocratic middleman. Emphasizing gifting has more to do with what is honored culturally than with the means of transferrence. And I’d also mention there’s a difference between giving because one wants to receive social recognition and giving anonymously simply because one authentically wants to help another.
