1. Massive pirate. Won't pay for anything. If we made it a perfect world, they would just mooch off other people in the extreme, never paying for anything.
They won't be customers. Ever. But they do talk about stuff, make recommendations, etc... So they can be leveraged in that way. Show them an AD, or have them do some other minor league thing of value, and trade on that for some value. Good as it gets.
And it's important to factor these people in. Their copies and views don't devalue anything. Ignore their $0, and consider anything of value derived from their mindshare as a bonus.
2. Casual pirate. These people will pay, but don't want to be annoyed. Good service, making it easy, etc... all counts, and massive numbers of them will subscribe to lots of things. Cord cutters fall in to this bucket too. Cut out the $150 cable bill, and sign up for a few services, then buy things on top of that. Big cable loses a revenue stream, but content creators and service providers gain one.
3. Buyer. They typically have more means than most, and just pay because it's not a big impact to them. Upper middle class and above here mostly.
What people make, and what $10 means to them is absolutely a factor in how to compete with free works. The difference between #2 and #3 here is important.
Secondly, entertainment dollars are largely fixed for many people. Actually, my experience is this is true for most people. There is some flex in it, but there aren't billions laying around unspent somehow as most entertainment centric arguments imply. Most people have a coupla hundred bucks to spend. And the various forms of entertainment compete too. A summer of good movies? Yeah, maybe buy one less game.
Recognition of this means understanding price points, incentives to spend and how / when / why to compete with other entertainment forms to optimize revenue. Very little is being said about this, but we are seeing flat rate services compete fairly well while delivering consistent revenue.
All of this is particularly relevant to #2 above.
Considering all of these together highlights some ways to compete with free.
Be the free source. Pirating has some negatives attached to it. So side step those and give people options that can send value your way.
Increasingly, it's possible to stream now. I am a fan of AMC "Halt And Catch Fire" and do not have cable. I can't go and buy AMC just yet, and they didn't put the show on the services I do subscribe to.
On a quick check, there it was! Right there on the AMC site, and they want me to watch an AD, maybe participate in the little activities and potentially do other things in return for my eyeballs on the show.
Result?
Incentive to pirate goes way down. I've got a path in, and would gladly have gave them money for the views too.
Cory Doctrow does this with his books too. If you want to read 'em, he's the source for that. Grab and go. If you want to translate, or do fan derivatives, he will source that too.
I did that with "Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom", and really liked his work. Bought a lot of hard copies of his stuff since then. Had it not been that easy and obvious, I might have gotten some PDF, or other, or more likely, not done anything and would not know the guy at all.
Mindshare matters. Buying it with views to compete is a perfectly valid business model. And giving people options like sharing / recommending / gifting means those who can pay with dollars will, and those who can't or won't, can do some work that leads to dollars. It's all dollars in the end, done right.
So there are a couple of ways right there. Both compete with free, both leverage mindshare to get some value while at the same time offering purchase opportunities.
The more of this there is, the less people will pirate, leaving us with just that use case #1 above, and there is nothing to be done with those people, other than to leverage their mindshare somehow.
Maximizing revenue is all about the other use cases and recognition of the nature of entertainment dollars and pricing on that understanding, IMHO.
Casual pirates and cord cutters aren't the same. At all. I don't get how you can erase the moral line between freeloading and just not being a customer.
Car rental companies don't look at people who just break into cars and steal them and think 'hey look - setting aside the hardcore boosting crews, and focusing on just casual car thieves, there's clearly a market for people who just want the convenience of taking any car they walk past for free! We need to compete with that on convenience and price!'
There's simply no excuse for being a casual pirate. I'm sorry, but it's just not right or fair to access the work of a content owner through a channel they don't endorse. Just because they haven't figured out a way to give you access on terms they agree to doesn't give you the right to take access on your terms.
Regarding the line between infringing and being a customer...
You know, this has another aspect I've been thinking about, and that is there is so much stuff...
Can't possibly consume even a fraction of it.
Maybe they should pay me to pay attention? It's worth thinking about. I really don't give it much attention now. When I decided to not infringe at all, I found a lot of it isn't worth the price. I also found there are a ton of things to do besides watch passive entertainment.
It's really hard to get me in front of a TV doing nothing for a couple three hours. I just don't do it.
So then, I might be talked into doing it, and I might be talked into sharing my experiences, recommending, etc... and that might come with some benefits too, like I might give a rip about some brand or other, or allow an AD impression to sink in.
None of that has to happen for me. Often it doesn't, yet there it is, massive piles of stuff out there, seemingly useless, easily ignored.
My mindshare is valuable. Maybe it's worth it to not just hand it over so easy. Maybe they should earn it, and that starts with some sort of investment or incentive for me to give it a shot, whatever it is.
Many cord cutters are finding this out. Just use less TV overall. It's not a bad thing at all.
So there are aspects here not always discussed, and depending on how things go, those aspects could turn out somewhat ugly, if unintended too.
So what does being a customer really mean?
Just some thoughts there to balance this discussion some.
No, they aren't the same. But they are similar in that a lot of members of both will pay.
I lumped them in to the same bucket to highlight how mindshare can translate into value other than direct pay per view.
As for there being no excuse?
Sure there is. It's possible to do.
End game is really simple:
a. We make it a perfect, closed, trusted computing only world. That's draconian, and very likely not possible.
Suddenly, mindshare goes way down. People only get what they can actually pay for. What do you think happens with pricing, etc...?
b. We recognize that it's possible to do.
Mindshare stays high, and people compete for revenue, and or ways to leverage mindshare for value / revenue.
I'm in the latter camp, and am not judging people one way or the other, instead focused on getting the maximum value out of the activity and mindshare.
And here is the hard truth. They don't like infringing. Who does? But they absolutely do like the massive mindshare their work got them. So it's one or the other.
In the perfect world, getting mindshare might involve what? Say giving it away? Maybe allowing people to share it?
c. We recognize that individuals need to take some moral responsibility for their actions.
The issue isn't that it's possible to do. All kinds of things that are bad for society are possible to do but people don't do them because they will get caught and punished. The issue is that it's possible to get away with doing it.
And I submit it's always going to be possible to get away with doing it
, and
that it's possible to get away from doing it is actually important for all the business models to compete.
Go back to the closed, perfect, world. No infringing uses happen. What's the end game on that, pricing, getting mind share, etc...
I'll tell you what happens, and that is a lot of give aways and a ton of pricing changes. First one to move on that gains huge share, forcing the rest along. One will say, "go ahead, share it" and it's game on.
And who really wants that closed perfect computing world? I sure don't, and look at all the abuse where it does exist?
Open needs to be an alternative to that, if nothing else, to keep people somewhat sane and honest.
If open exists, so does infringement.
So then, how to maximize revenue? Sales is one way, leveraging mindshare is another.
The farther we go down that road, the more productive the discussion is.
And it's about the harm too. People do all sorts of things that are possible to do, and they do them under the threat of being caught and punished.
We make the punishment a remedy and recompense for harm done too.
So how appropriate is 150K / infringing act, compared to actual theft which carries significantly less penalty in most cases?
It's crazy! People are wanting to make it criminal and impose very significant terms too. That will also be crazy.
We need to have a talk about harm. Somebody watching a movie they aren't supposed to isn't that big of a harm.
And it can be a benefit, depending.
That dialog needs to be continued and continued rationally.
Frankly, I've stepped away from a ton of this. When I boil it down, choose to not infringe, I find the value of it all highly dubious, and there are lots of other things to do.
So I'm mostly out.
The little kid mooching software, movies, games, programming tools, whatever seeking to learn and grow might be on the moral bad side, if they have means. If they are poor? Trust me when I say they don't care, and are just seeking opportunity and skills.
It's not as black and white as you frame it.
And it's a control issue sometimes when it shouldn't be too.
Okay, let's not use a theft-based analogy then. Climbing into empty houses through open windows and sleeping in people's beds isn't stealing, it's infringing.
Since that is so easy and convenient, why would anybody use the products of the old-fashioned 'hotel' industry? And with new players like AirBnB enabling bed providers to monetize their beds so much more easily, really there's no excuse for bed providers to restrict access to their beds. The market has spoken - beds are freely available for anybody, and anybody who is hanging on to the old-fashioned model of bed-rights management needs to get with the times.
And it does for obvious reasons all related to the difference between physical things and information.
This is an information conversation, not a physical one.
Two things:
1. Infringing is wrong. You seem to be attempting to sell me on that it's wrong.
No need for that. It is. Well, until it isn't, and that's up to the content creator really. Some choose to allow infringing uses and will actually source them, thus transforming them into non-infringing uses more than they are infringing ones, and they get value for doing that.
It's important that model be possible. See Doctorow, Lessig, et al. for how and why that works.
Some content creators are opposed, and infringing on them is wrong.
But how that actually works is where the discussion is.
Sometimes we allow infringing for fair uses, despite opposition from content creators too.
The dialog is more subtle than these "it's wrong" physical analogies account for, and where that continues to be true, we have an incomplete discussion, and with that, an ongoing mess and I submit, non-optimal revenue and opportunity for same.
2. Where we are clashing and that is information does not operate on the same terms as physical things do. You seem to be attempting to get me to equate the two, and I'm just not gonna do that.
They aren't the same and they don't operate in the same ways.
There are a few use cases here:
1. Massive pirate. Won't pay for anything. If we made it a perfect world, they would just mooch off other people in the extreme, never paying for anything.
They won't be customers. Ever. But they do talk about stuff, make recommendations, etc... So they can be leveraged in that way. Show them an AD, or have them do some other minor league thing of value, and trade on that for some value. Good as it gets.
And it's important to factor these people in. Their copies and views don't devalue anything. Ignore their $0, and consider anything of value derived from their mindshare as a bonus.
2. Casual pirate. These people will pay, but don't want to be annoyed. Good service, making it easy, etc... all counts, and massive numbers of them will subscribe to lots of things. Cord cutters fall in to this bucket too. Cut out the $150 cable bill, and sign up for a few services, then buy things on top of that. Big cable loses a revenue stream, but content creators and service providers gain one.
3. Buyer. They typically have more means than most, and just pay because it's not a big impact to them. Upper middle class and above here mostly.
What people make, and what $10 means to them is absolutely a factor in how to compete with free works. The difference between #2 and #3 here is important.
Secondly, entertainment dollars are largely fixed for many people. Actually, my experience is this is true for most people. There is some flex in it, but there aren't billions laying around unspent somehow as most entertainment centric arguments imply. Most people have a coupla hundred bucks to spend. And the various forms of entertainment compete too. A summer of good movies? Yeah, maybe buy one less game.
Recognition of this means understanding price points, incentives to spend and how / when / why to compete with other entertainment forms to optimize revenue. Very little is being said about this, but we are seeing flat rate services compete fairly well while delivering consistent revenue.
All of this is particularly relevant to #2 above.
Considering all of these together highlights some ways to compete with free.
Be the free source. Pirating has some negatives attached to it. So side step those and give people options that can send value your way.
Increasingly, it's possible to stream now. I am a fan of AMC "Halt And Catch Fire" and do not have cable. I can't go and buy AMC just yet, and they didn't put the show on the services I do subscribe to.
On a quick check, there it was! Right there on the AMC site, and they want me to watch an AD, maybe participate in the little activities and potentially do other things in return for my eyeballs on the show.
Result?
Incentive to pirate goes way down. I've got a path in, and would gladly have gave them money for the views too.
Cory Doctrow does this with his books too. If you want to read 'em, he's the source for that. Grab and go. If you want to translate, or do fan derivatives, he will source that too.
I did that with "Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom", and really liked his work. Bought a lot of hard copies of his stuff since then. Had it not been that easy and obvious, I might have gotten some PDF, or other, or more likely, not done anything and would not know the guy at all.
Mindshare matters. Buying it with views to compete is a perfectly valid business model. And giving people options like sharing / recommending / gifting means those who can pay with dollars will, and those who can't or won't, can do some work that leads to dollars. It's all dollars in the end, done right.
So there are a couple of ways right there. Both compete with free, both leverage mindshare to get some value while at the same time offering purchase opportunities.
The more of this there is, the less people will pirate, leaving us with just that use case #1 above, and there is nothing to be done with those people, other than to leverage their mindshare somehow.
Maximizing revenue is all about the other use cases and recognition of the nature of entertainment dollars and pricing on that understanding, IMHO.