[robbrown451]

To each their own, but I personally would rather have someone saying "here's some cool power tools / skateboard equipment / digital pianos you might be interested in buying" than "don't you feel terrible for not sending us money for this thing you can get for free?"

I don't like being guilted, I really don't. But I understand that some feel differently.

[tehjoker]

It's bad either way, only adequate public funding for arts and media can resolves some of these problems.

[robbrown451]

I agree with you...I have long been saying that intellectual property (and that includes software) is going to either be subject to artificial scarcity (to me, the biggest evil * ), or horrible funding models like advertising.

Public funding makes a ton of sense, personally I think it is the only economically efficient solution, but doing it well is hard. I scanned your history here to see a bit more on where you are coming from (I agree with you on a lot of things), and I see that this is something you talk about a lot.

I notice you say elsewhere "the enemy is the state". That makes it tricky to say "the state should decide what stuff gets funded." I always tend to be up against that whenever I suggest that state funded IP makes sense. I still believe there is a way.

I have more thoughts on how we could actually move toward such things, my contact info is in my profile, feel free to email.

* see chapter 25 of the Grapes of Wrath for a beautifully written essay on the evils of artificial scarcity: https://genius.com/John-steinbeck-grapes-of-wrath-chapter-25...