> Monetizing information is a hard problem. Information wants to be free, and I think we should not build cages - no matter how pretty - for the sake of imprisoning information. This is one of the reasons why I don’t intend to charge for bits and bytes.
Discussion
> Free speech platforms can not exist. Only free speech protocols can exist.
> If someone can control what is being said, someone will control what is being said. If you can monitor, filter, and censor content, you will monitor, filter, and censor content.
> All platforms will run into this problem, no matter how pristine their intentions. Even if you position yourself as a free speech platform at first, you will be forced to step in and censor in the long run.
> We move from the analog world of scarcity into the digital world of abundance. Markets don't work in this world. In the words of Jaron Lanier: "Markets become absurd as supply approaches infinity."
> "Trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet," to quote Bruce Schneier.
> When it comes to JPGs, mp3 files, blog posts, or similar digital artifacts, we have to stop pretending that the files themselves are scarce or precious. They aren't. The humans that create them are. Consequently, we have to find new ways of pricing and monetizing things. New ways of making sure that the value that is generated accrues to the humans that are responsible for the added value, without imprisoning information or users—without trying to make water not wet.
> We have to disconnect price from value, and we have to re-think both.
https://dergigi.com/2022/12/18/a-vision-for-a-value-enabled-web/
> "The Ask" is the most important piece of the puzzle. The number one reason people do not give is because they weren’t asked, and the same holds true for the V4V model.
> There is an art in asking your audience to give back, and it will be different depending on medium, demographics, and other factors. But one thing remains: you’ll have to ask.
Well I startet to write up some thoughts but your replies just went right to K.O. with them. Honestly Gigi, I (we?) love it! Thank you so much!
Can Filipinos own Bitcoin as much as the Americans can?When?
Yep, that’s a profound point I’ve been trying to articulate but you’ve found great words for. Independent of #nostr, Sam Harris is incredibly good at what you call “the ask”. He does it in a way where it is clearly authentic, because 1) unlike almost everyone else he’s forgoing advertising revenue and 2) he offers people who can not afford it a free version of his subscriptions.
What’s interesting there is that the default is people pay and he forces people to be ACTIVELY disingenuous if they want to cheat his system.
I don’t understand this one still. Information trends toward being free in the digital space because of the zero cost of duplication, but duplication is not the only cost.
Paywalls don’t pretend that the cost of duplication isn’t zero, they just have to be reasonable and frictionless enough that someone will pay for the “original” version rather than go to the trouble of finding the duplicate (which in many cases is duplicated by someone predatory).
Have you read the writing linked in this thread? I took great pains in trying to explain the problem in detail.
In any case, I'm fine with the "selling early access" argument. Just don't pretend that you're selling information.
Yes of course, I’ve read it all. The problem with the reasoning that “all information wants to be free” is that even the information that is free is not free!
If you are downloading that “free” information on your computer, whether that be viewing a screenshot of an article on twitter, or pirating a movie, or reading from a Nostr relay, someone else is footing the bill to make it “free” to you.
Pirated movie sites have a million ads and they are a nightmare and terrible to use. Why? Because even the “free” movies that have broken their paywall chains and “set themselves free”… still have a paywall. You’re just paying for the servers with the annoyance and UX nightmare and accidental clicks on a paywall of a million ads instead of a literal paywall.
Lightning will be see easy, so frictionless, that *almost no* information will be free. The cost of receiving information will trend toward the cost of serving it to you, plus whatever additional cost people are willing to pay to be honest. But you’ll pay that cost with a real paywall. Because the alternative of not paying an easy, instant, and cheap Lightning paywall is to go pay for the content some other way that sucks way more than zapping 10 sats (or however many).
Give me any example of paid content “setting itself free” and I’ll show you the trade off you’re choosing to consume it that way instead of just paying for it.