Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/09/podcast-drm-broke-its-promise.html
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The interesting(if far from surprising that it would be repeated anyway) thing is that the promise of DRM was always counter to market orthodoxy:
It’s a microeconomics 101 commonplace that (if circumstances allow it) price discrimination is to the seller’s advantage; and the closer to perfection one can bring it the greater the slice of the transaction’s surplus value the seller can capture.
Once you get beyond the relatively crude copy-resistance measures, essentially all the clever DRM schemes double(in some cases seem designed primarily to serve as) tools for price discrimination. Even without the other unpleasant side effects not even an orthodox market enthusiast reading of the situation suggested that it was going to go our way.
And oh boy didn’t it ever…
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Cory, is there an RSS feed for your podcasts?
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Yes, I was hoping it was in Google Podcasts. Lately I’ve been using it, but it’s a little annoying that I can’t just add feeds or individual files to listen to (at least, not in the UI).
It’s just the second wave of rentier (pseudo-feudal) lordism to be honest. My pet theory is that collectively the capital class desired/s the title and forms of feudalism but none of the costs that go into such an arrangement. So they simulate it via the renting business model as a means to have their cake of capitalist accumulation (and living standards) and eat it too with having the power of monopoly privilege that many feudal lords had enjoyed. It’s a two for one deal. So instead of Marx’s history going forward toward state capitalism then to socialism (and eventually communism) we’re regressing but in a retro-futurist take on feudalism. FML
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That… sounds about correct! I totally agree that this is the direction some want us to go towards (the Dark Enlightenment nimrods).
This is why viewing history teleologically is a bad and dangerous idea, because it sets us up to think that progress is natural, and will always happen. It will not. It can all go tits up, if we are not aware of how progressive change has been made historically, and official historical narratives often attempt to strip agency from people, and to show a “naturally” occurring narrative of progress and improvement, with our lives slowly getting better, thanks to the “course of history”. We need to very much keep in mind HOW progress is actually made, and that’s by a constant push by individuals working together and in groups to improve life.
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Thanks! Subscribed.
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