Re: Software as a public service

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> Of course.  But that doesn't mean you don't want to amortize the cost
> over all the uses.

This is where the discussions often fail.  What you describe is a 
business model which has its own costs-benefits analysis.  On the 
benefits side you in theory have a system which allows users to only pay 
a small price individually.  On the costs side you have the huge 
policing/legal requirement to deal with the obvious tendency of users to 
not want to report their use or pay the cost (software copyright 
infringement by end users -- what the BSA/CAAST and others mistakenly 
call "software theft"), and you also have the disincentive to peer 
production participation.  The policing for this business model also 
encourages a lack of transparency and accountability in the software, 
resulting in less value for the user.


I never want to amortize the costs over all the uses as I strongly 
believe this business model is mostly cost and minimal benefit over the 
alternatives.


>     Russell> Is there economic terminology that separates these two
>     Russell> different types of scarcity?
> 
> This is close to the distinction between the "extensive" margin (eg,
> employing more workers) vs the "intensive" margin (eg, having each
> worker do overtime).  I'm not sure whether the odd feeling I get as I
> write that is significant, or just that this is a perfectly
> appropriate but unfamiliar context for that terminology.
> 
> There's also a distinction between "scale" (more of the same) and
> "scope" (greater variety), but those words are pretty specific to
> costs in common usage.  I'm not sure if they can be coerced to this
> usage.

I'm still not certain we are talking about the same thing at all.  Any 
talk of software business models that doesn't take its non-rivalrous (or 
anti-rivalrous) nature into consideration fails in my mind.

In the case of a worker the same worker can only exist and work in a 
single place at a given time (they don't exist inside some infinite 
improbability engine or something, or in multiple dimensions), so their 
labour is rivalrous.  This makes it entirely unlike software.

-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/blog/2 (My BLOG)
  Sign the Petition Users' Rights! http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/
  To protect Internet age creativity we must reform WIPO, not copyright!