ot-no free lunch

Evan Leibovitch evan-ieNeDk6JonTYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org
Wed Dec 28 17:00:38 UTC 2005


teddy mills wrote:

>That basically means as I understand it, anything that is free, or you
>dont have to work for it, has no or very little value to you.
>  
>
Basic Logic 101 states that if your premise is flawed, most conclusions 
based on that premise will also be flawed. There are a lot of 
assumptions here to be challenged; whether conventional wisdom or 
spur-of-the-moment assertions, I agree with very little of what's been 
put forward as a foundation for anything to debate.

There is a big difference between a statement being often true and being 
a truism. It is a mistake to elevate one's own experiences into 
universal constants.

>If you have 10 computers, getting or giving up a computer means very little to you.
>
If you have 10 computer users in your family, or if each serves a unique 
purpose, losing one will certainly mean something.

>The DATA on the computer may mean a LOT to you because YOU HAD TO WORK, perhaps a lot, to get that DATA.
>
Then again, if a lot of it was downloaded from other sites, it's not 
necessarily difficult to recover.

>A video store owner cares nothing about renting movies. He or she is sick of movies. He/she would rather read a good book.
>  
>
Again, true in some cases, but not all. Some people *do* love what they 
do and give value to it beyond the pay. As I went through journalism 
school, I found that getting one's name in print or one's face on the 
air would motivate people to work for far less than their market value. 
Media outlets, of course, exploit this vanity.

As for the specific example, my son works part time at Blockbuster 
_because_ he loves movies. He can rent 10 movies a week for free and 
takes maximum advantage of the perk. His knowledge and ability to talk 
about movies makes him more valuable to his employer, but he gets a 
genuine thrill about recommending good stuff and keeping people away 
from crap.

>Think of anything you have a lot of, or can get for free. Books at the library I dont care about. I can get them anytime! I care about them when they are on hold for me, because I went to the effort of searching, and then waiting, and making the trip to get the book on hold. I had to invest some work, even though the book itself was free.
>  
>
I can't disagree more. I use the library because there are books I want 
to read but don't need to own. The fact that I don't directly pay for 
the borrowing privilege does not make the books themselves less 
valuable. The last book I borrowed was a university textbook that was 
only available as a $200 hardcover. The book has value to me, but so 
does the library offer value to me by making the borrowing facility 
available. The fact that the book was on the shelves and didn't needed 
to be on hold does not make the book more or less valuable.

>This is what Linux is having a problem with the human reward/value system.
>  
>
This only peripherally touches on Linux's problem with the human reward 
value system. Indeed, I would suggest that this "problem" is one that 
many other fields would covet.

>Is there a way to make people "invest" some time and effort so they can get their "book (ie. linux) for free, but now assign a great deal of value to it? *much like getting a free library book thats on hold ?)
>  
>
Bad premise, bad conclusion.

Not only is there a way, but such way is in use. That way is what gave 
you Linux and sendmail and so much else of what is in the open source world.

>We can download and install almost 300 different versions of Linux. For the cost of some time, and about $1 in CDs.
>
The value of such technology is not in simply amassing them, it's from 
choosing one of those 300 versions, loading it on your computer, and 
using it to accomplish something useful to you. There is no real value 
realized until then (unless you have a first edition Yggdrasil CD to put 
on eBay).

>You can give someone a deck of cards, but you cannot force them to be the Poker World Champion. They have to want to become the World poker champ.
>
Somewhere deeply buried here is an attempt to make some point about 
scarcity of resources and the foundation for human incentives. Most of 
these points have been made before, and debated at length, including the 
very real difference between cost and value.

I'm not meaning to belittle Teddy's opinions, but I'm having a very hard 
time finding something substantive with which to agree, disagree or debate.

- Evan

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