Ah... the Commons!
The "Little Red Hen" story is about a generous creature who tries to
help create or enrich the Commons and ultimately must retreat to a
selfish position because noone else will participate.
Who here is as excited about contributing to or grooming the quality and
value of the Commons as they are about benefiting from it, extracting
from it? "WHERES MY FREE LUNCH?!" we chant!
In Northern NM many of us still live on acequia systems... a commons
built by the people for the people and used by the people and maintained
by the people. On any ditch there are those who spend the winter
sharpening their tools to be ready for "ditch cleaning day" in the
spring and there are those who manage not to even have tools much less
sharp ones to help make sure the ditch holds water and runs clean and easy.
But *everyone* on the ditch wants their water. Oddly the ones most
likely to be resentful when there isn't enough water, to blame those
upstream for "taking too much" and those downstream for "not deserving"
are likely to be the same one's whose tools are not sharp on ditch
cleaning day.
To be fair, I know that there are many here who contribute code,
documentation, scholarly papers, etc. to the Commons... but these are
often the folks most willing to pay subscriptions, to buy articles, to
contribute to public radio, etc.? Or am I wrong?
- Steve
Well, my point wasn't really related to the price. It's more about
cost:benefit, or perhaps low hanging fruit. The cops tell us to lock
our doors, not because locks keep out serious criminals, but because it
puts a tiny hurdle in front of the lazy opportunist criminals.
Seeing the bootlegs so high up in the page rank is what makes it
interesting, to me. It's so _easy_ to steal. That's what brings the
subject so much closer to conversations about "the commons" or the
public good.
At what point does ubiquity _force_ membership in the commons?
Arlo Barnes wrote at 04/18/2013 12:19 PM:
But it sounds like it is out of your price range, at least for now. The
author (nor the
publisher<http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/03/reminder-why-theres-no-tipjar.html>)
gets no money from you checking the book out of the library, so what are
they losing from you pirating the book? Not that I am suggesting that is
what you *should* do - it is an individual decision, after all - but I
always find it interesting what people consider their 'boundary' and why.
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