Hi David:
I hope all is well on your end!
Allow me to extend the discussion concerning free information and the internet.
Your position is well argued but perhaps not completely nuanced. If those with useful information cannot recover the costs of dispensing such advice then their contributions will by necessity cease. There will be a loss of information that might otherwise have been valuable and important.
Another approach would be to allow "the marketplace" to decide which information is worth paying for, and which information is not.
I think we might agree that valuable information is indeed "worth" paying for. However, how does one actually assign a value to information? I would argue that the marketplace is the gateway that allows free choice.
As a corollary: You and others who allow free access to valuable and in-depth information are to be admired and sincerely thanked. However, as you state: "Web sites that need income to keep them alive is true and perfectly acceptable".
Furthermore, in my view those individuals ( via individual web sites ) who find the need to affix a cost to pay for their time and for computers, software, printing paper, inks, etc., used to research issues that will be discussed and clarified via the internet should be able to recover such fixed costs. Once again: The "market" will decide which individuals and services offering advice and information are worth supporting.
Elliot
From: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 9:33 AM
To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Digital BW] Re: OT - Luminous Landscape
Homer,
The logical conclusion of your point of view is that every web site will charge a monthly fee (you said both monthly and yearly; which one is it?).
Think of all the web sites you visit for photographic information. Do you really want to be cut off from all that if you can’t pay every last one of them?!
And how often do you use each web site? You will probably never get close to receiving a $12 value from most.
Look at your bookmarks! What if every single one of them has to be paid every month or year, or your library card is revoked? Is that really what you want? The internet IS the new library.
The whole idea of the internet is freely available information. You’re talking about making the internet useless and unavailable, to all but the well off.
It is especially troublesome that a photographer would be supporting this wrong idea. Photography is where it is today BECAUSE of the free exchange of information among photographers, or do you forget that Kodak and Ilford, while producing great products, also slammed the door on individual innovation for over a hundred years? Alternative methods are currently thriving AND progressing, because of the free exchange of information ON THE INTERNET!
Hasn’t the existing in-your-face, forced, aggressive advertising already soured the experience enough? Do you really want a coin slot installed in your computer?
That web sites need income to keep them alive is true and perfectly acceptable. Fees to get access, or forced takeover of a page by advertisers are not.
David Kachel
___________________
Artist-Photographer
Fine B&W Photographs
PO Box 1093
Bisbee, AZ 85603
The Internet has caused people to think that everything should be free, but it's not free to create or maintain. Paying for what you get is a much more natural state of affairs and, in the long run, will benefit all of those who do any kind of content creation - and that would include every photographer.
Message
Re: [Digital BW] Re: OT - Luminous Landscape
2015-12-14 by Paul Roark
I agree that people should expect to pay for any product -- information or widgets. Most forums are supported via advertising, the list of names the owner gets, and the extent to which a good forum attracts people to other products the owner has that are not free. So, we who use them are paying indirectly.
The problem I ran into is that the LuLa software was blocking my providing information to them for free. It is irrational for Lula to block or charge those who are free providers of information TO them. If they do charge for the forum, it should be on the reading side, not the providers of the information that is, in effect, a gift to them.
I assume the glitch has been taken care of and all is well now.
All that said (and being someone with an econ degree and a career in the related field of antitrust), I still vastly favor the totally "free" internet. Economics is a limited model that does not deal with very large parts of human behavior, including the posting of information for free. It was Lula's stated intention of keeping the forums free, and that is a very good thing and in their economic interest.
Paul
On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 7:22 AM, 'Elliot Puritz' drpuritz@... [DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint] <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com> wrote: