Re: Economics of FE

Dr Jones ( hexslngr@internet-frontier.net )
Sat, 24 Jan 1998 19:50:23 -0800 (PST)

Hi Dr Jones, et al...

... I dunno, I'm sorta with Ken. I'd like to continue this FE Economics
thread, but perhaps this isn't the best place to do it? This is supposed
to be a technical discussion (or at least that's my impression). The
Economics of FE (marketing, sales, distribution, etc) *NEEDS* to be
discussed - but if people are unwilling to listen, I'd be more than happy
to take that discussion elsewhere. Take it to e-mail or find us some quiet
mail-list or IRC channel or SOMETHING.

At any rate -- my whole reason for bringing up the economics tie-in is
that many people seem to think that somehow they're going to change the
world overnight and all the established businesses are just going to turn
a blind eye to them. That's like walking into combat thinking the enemy
isn't going to shoot you dead. Clearly strategic use of economic
principles *MUST* be utilized by inventors -- or their inventions are just
going to rot in burning hell. Also, to those worried about people ripping
off their ideas and running them into the ground:

Blow off. Seriously. Not to derail the topic, but remember IBM? Yeah,
those guys. They took the PC and made their technology available so other
manufacturers could build PC-compatibles. They helped to establish an
industry standard. But did they die? Of course not -- because once they
set the standard, THEY LED BY EXAMPLE. I'm suprised nobody here figured
that out... or maybe I'm the only one who took economics in high school.
I dunno. I'm not trying to set anybody off -- I'm just rather miffed at
the general attitude by folks who just want to brush off the economics
side of F/E altogether.