In article <4ndcan$cmp@foglet.rutgers.edu>,
William Barwell <wbarwell@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> wrote:
>Brainpower and expertise will be the money makers.
>Sort of like software.
...
>Eventually though, money looses it's value in a nanotech world.
>But in a crowded world, land in a good climate with a view is the big prize.
>These sorts of things will be the goal, not money.
>
>
>[Money will still be around. The number of people who want to buy
> ready-made far far exceeds those who want to roll their own -- software
> is the perfect example.
Eventually ready made will become more expensive. Packaging and shipping and warehouse costs will doom that. But not for a long time. Besides, coded assembler instructions will give you customization features not available in off the shelf.
Most software makers don't even bother to try
> for copy protection any more. In the real, as opposed to the academic
> world, time is more valuable than money.
Copy protection was a failure because of consumer resistance. When software cost $495 for a spread sheet, CP seemed to make sense. At $129, ($89 mail order if you shopped around), they made more money as more could afford these pieces of software and CP didn't matter as much as it would cost as much to xerox the documentation as buy it anyway. It all got cracked anyway.
But assembler instructions will be different when that comes. If you had the choice of no stereo or paying the equivalent of $19.95 for top notch plans your home assembler could use to make a truely choice stereo, would you begrudge the designers their $19.95?
Probably not. Think of shareware. You can get most of it free, but many pay their money for the manual and sometimes a few more features. Assemblers will change the rules just as shareware did. I am sure shareware assembler instructions will be available, but if you want the best, you'd pay a little for extra. Or for the best.
Really, if such things existed, it would be the design that mattered.
Distributing the design rather than product would be far cheaper and faster and more efficient. It is just a matter of finding how to do so. How to make money, or whatever is important in the future.
Pope Charles
SubGenius Pope Of Houston
Slack!