2008 10
Is the digital world sustainable?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
For historical reasons the digital world that includes movies, music, videogames, tv channels, internet access, voice minutes over fixed and mobile lines, internet content, is grossly unfair. In the digital world most people download and get music for free and have come to expect music to be free. The same people however pay a fortune for voice calls to their mobile operators and seem to think that that is normal. More and more people pay less for movies and are downloading them for free. In Europe now the video game industry makes more money than the music and the movie industry combined. But as much as they are unwilling to pay for movies themselves they pay tons of money to Cable Operators to have access to an enormous selection of TV Channels that they hardly watch. Instead they still mostly watch broadcasting television which is free. They pay significant amounts to fixed telecom carriers and yet are unwilling to pay any money for the content that makes internet access worthwhile. And pay nothing for writing long emails over the telephone or their computers but pay absurd amounts to send 140 characters or less in an SMS. Is the digital world sustainable?
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No Comments
Ohm on April 10, 2008 ·
That note is great!
No competition (i.e. telco industry) = high prices.
Global competition (i.e. internet content) = everything for free.
giuse on April 10, 2008 ·
bob dylan said “the answer my friend is
blowing in the wind”: but if music and video
have been broadcast they belong to mankind.
GT.
Matin on April 14, 2008 ·
Martin,
How do you think this applies to mobile phone applications? And, how do you think someone can build a profitable business selling mobile phone applications?
Do they need to give the apps for free and charge for the services?
Thanks,
Matin
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XL on April 10, 2008 ·
Quite interesting post…
But Bach, Mozart or Bethoven had reached the excelence without sold any CD, so it shouldn’t be a problem for the musiciens keep his excelence.
Many singers our groups had developed his carrer for free on internet and later they had earned money with concerts and shows… Now Internet is a way to promote your art, and you should recive your incomes from concerts and shows (as Bethoven, Mozart, Bach or Vivaldi had done) The people still going to the disco and still watching shows…
People pay for Cable TV because is difficult to steal the signal, and pay for a SMS because it’s difficult to cheat Vodafone, but remember that the cracker culture had started trying to cheat to ATT phones with Cap’s Crunch system…
The world still moving and the industry must follow it.
Is simple: Evolution or extintion….