NOW: paradigm shift

[Fairlight]

This public service announcement was brought to you by Walter Vaughan:
> I think the paradigm shift is that some people are quite comfortable with
> paying for support contracts but are unwilling to continue treating and
> paying for a pattern of bits on a disk as if they are physical objects
> that consume space with a relation between consumption and cost to
> deliver.

I don't know why you say that.  Blizzard has 8 million plus people that do
it monthly for WoW, Sony has another million or so between their various
MMO's, CCP has over a million for EVE online, Origin (now part of EA) holds
a lot for Ultima Online, and a number of other MMO companies all collect
money every month--all for storing bits of data that people spend hours
of their lives arranging, but don't actually own the rights to the data
structures, nor the data held within their own records.  The only
difference is on whose disks it resides.

The companies hold the rights to the data structures -and- the data, no
matter how many times they (illegally) change hands privately, on eBay, or
what-have-you.

What people want (and have -always- wanted) is the ability to say, "This
particular instance of bits is MINE.  I may not have exclusive rights to it
because it's only one item I purchased, but I paid for it, and I'll damned
well do what I want with it."  And -that- is what the software industry
refuses to budge on.  Ditto with the media industries.  That's also why we
have a virtual revolution on our hands with pirated songs, movies, games,
and apps all changing hands over P2P networks on a day to day basis.

If you buy a book, you can dog-ear the pages, scribble in the margins,
etc.  If you buy a CD, you can play it, snap it in half, use it as a drink
coaster, etc.  You technically even have legal right to make archival
copies for personal use.  If you buy a car, you can tinker and modify it
to your heart's content.  

What people want is simply the ability to use software as if it were any
other asset they bought.  That fundamental mentality of the masses is
precisely why people see nothing illegal about buying and selling data
structures they don't even own, if you go by the MMO model.  Nevermind
the tools used--they put in the time building their characters, they
figure they have a right to profit from that investment in time if they so
choose.  The companies that control the tools feel otherwise.  In the other
industries, it's a simple matter of copyright law and its vast unsuitedness
to the industries that have come into existence in the last 20 years.

> Currently the world is in a flux between boxed software mentality, and
> SAAS.  No one likes change. Niche markets will be able to hold out
> longer, but eventually "the computer is the network" will win out.

Not seein' it.  That whole shift took place in some communities the better
part of a decade ago.  See above.  I was playing UO around 1998, and
somewhere around 2000, UO accounts had a better exchange rate than the
Italian Liera--literally.  My accounts, at the height of the craze, would
have gone for $900 combined for my wife's and mine.  Possibly up to $2k.
We saw lesser accounts go for between those figures.

mark->
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