roundtable: Re: Is the problem content production or access to carriage?

roundtable: Re: Is the problem content production or access to carriage?

Re: Is the problem content production or access to carriage?

Brad Cox @ GMU/PSOL (bcox@gmu.edu)
Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:57:50 -0500 

Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 10:57:50 -0500
Message-Id: <199403281557.AA02183@access1.digex.net>
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: bcox@gmu.edu (Brad Cox @ GMU/PSOL)
Subject: Re: Is the problem content production or access to carriage?

Michael Chui <mchui@cs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> 
>could you say more about why you believe the production
>of high-quality content is likely to be a greater problem than obtaining
>access to carriage?  From a technical and economic standpoint, it seems
>to me that the means of producing high quality content have been become
>increasingly available with advances in digital technology

Because means of production is such a small part of the problem. The big
problem is *incentive* for production.

I'm not talking rocket science here. Even high school dropouts (or Tibetan
salt traders) understand the incentive for production in hauling salt,
milking cows, growing beans, torquing screws, or flipping burgers. But
where's the incentive for producing high-quality content for internet
distribution?

Lessee now, as Joe Citizen, what can I download today? Presidential
speeches, bureaucratic memos, government proclamations, nerdy FAQs,
flamewars, email chitchat, ...

Wouldn't Joe Citizen's rational choice be to watch TV, where the 
incentive problem has been addressed, tho in a fashion I'd hope we can 
vastly improve on for Internet?

Get my drift?

        Brad

--
Brad Cox; bcox@gmu.edu; 703 968 8229 Voice 703 968 8798 Fax
George Mason Program on Social and Organizational Learning

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