Comments on: The Suicide of Design

By: Lizzy Patterson

Lizzy Patterson — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:49:46 +0000

Hey, cool site. My name is Lizzy and I found this researching for one of my finals. I like it!

By: NIC

NIC — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:30:47 +0000

Yes, some good points, but most software you shouldn’t have to pay for anymore. That’s how the market is heading, so it is up to these companies to adjust their business models. When Adobe charges over 1000 dollars for their producst they don’t expect average consumers to buy it. They can’t. As an average consumer, I therefore shouldn’t feel bad pirating it because its unrealistic and unfare for me to use it at full price. If I started using their software to make money, that would be a different story and I would gladly pay. If it was reasonably priced that would be different. Same thing with font. In the information age, why should i pay $40 for font? Thats ridiculous and inconsistent with the way everything else is priced. Its their job to come up with a better business model. The record companies have slowly begun to do this. Its about time software companies followed.

By: Chuck Green

Chuck Green — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:23:10 +0000

Thanks for your comment. I understand your concerns, but allow me to add this:

The creative person IS the big corporation.

You can track any organization back to a person or a small group of people with an idea. They believe in their idea to the extent that they are willing to invest their time and resources to give it life.

That “system” of people with the idea worked within the “system” in which they live–one that is loosely organized to provide basics such as shelter, food, security, transportation, and so on.

Now imagine that one of the people developing the idea uses a telephone one day. In doing so, aren’t they acknowledging their need for and faith in that system? And by paying their phone bill aren’t they compensating the worker who mined the ore that produced the bolt used to assemble the tower on which the lines are strung that make their call possible?

We can agree that some groups of people seem to receive an unreasonable amount of compensation for the idea they developed, but beauty of our system is we are free to replace it with our own alternative. The critical piece, and what I was originally talking about, is that we play by the rules of the game we find ourselves a part of. That we abide by the rules of the current system until we replace it with a better alternative.

Imagine for a moment the billions of creative thoughts and ideas contributed by the hundreds of millions of people who have made it possible for me to click on a key and make what I type show up on your computer–it is staggering.

To define everything solely in terms of our personal world would ignore the contributions of all those who made our way of life and work possible.

By: Anonymous coward

Anonymous coward — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:39:46 +0000

While I basically agree, I also have to disagree on some points, namely the price of the work result being offered. Unfortunately, unlincensed copying of restricted works and monetary compensation for the author of the given work are two different things in our society. Big corporations always strive for market domination and thus the ability to dictate any price. The price tag on software or other digital work is often completely arbitrary and not related to the amount of work that has been done to create it. Don’t get me wrong – I am more than willing to pay for the things I’m using, be it software, hardware or services, but I want to be able to bypass the “big corporation” amount of money that does NOT go directly into the pocket of the creative persons involved. It is well known that corporations charge multiple times the amount of money for a product than what was invested to create it – or worse – than it’s actually worth.

If the software industry would charge reasonable prices AND assure to the customer that the biggest part of the money goes directly to the creators, I’d feel more at ease buying software or fonts.

Meanwhile, I continue to use open source software, fonts and operating systems wherever possible, because these people are able to provide high quality software for FREE, while others can’t do this even for money.
Not because I do not want to pay for anything, but because I’m not willing to put up with greedy corporations and people whining about their content being used without their consent. Have a look at the chinese product pirate machinery, then talk about people ripping off fonts again.