How Does Taking Away A Popular Feature 'Improve Netflix'?
I am not currently a Netflix customer, but one of the features of the service that I thought was quite useful (and I know plenty of people who use it actively) was the "profiles" feature that let a...
View ArticleUnderstanding The Difference Between Price And Value; Product And Benefit
Earlier this year, in response to yet another editorial somewhere where someone insisted that if something has a price of zero, it means that people don't think it has any value, we pointed out that...
View ArticleThe Benefits Of Piracy Aren't Always In The Expected Places
One of the issues that comes up when we discuss the economics of infinite goods is people too often falsely define the product that's being sold as the market, rather than the benefit. As we mentioned...
View ArticleIf You're Taking Away Features From Users, Don't Tell Them It's For Their Own...
Sometimes, I really wonder if companies think their users are stupid. There are times when they treat them that way. My favorite examples are when companies are taking away features or raising prices,...
View ArticleThe Psychology Of Externalities: Only I Can Benefit
To understand the economics of the digital era, at some point or another you need to dig pretty deep into the issue of externalities -- a topic on which there's been a lot of recent research. However,...
View ArticleAmie Street Also Takes Away Features... But At Least Is Honest And Upfront...
We've covered how eMusic (which had a fantastic reputation for a while) totally failed in communicating changes to its service, which involved increasing prices and taking away many valued features....
View ArticleUpdated Research Showing, Yet Again, That Weaker Copyright Has Benefited...
Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote about a draft version of a paper from Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard and Koleman Strumpf of the University of Kansas concerning the impact of weaker copyright...
View ArticleOnce Again, How Does DRM Benefit Anyone?
Drew points us Shane Richmond's blog post about not being able to open legally obtained eBooks due to DRM. There's nothing new in this story -- which has been repeated thousands of times over the past...
View ArticleHow Do You Measure The 'Benefits' Of Copyright?
One of the major problems we have with the way copyright law today is developed is how much of it is faith-based -- with supporters insisting that more stringent copyright law is obviously "better,"...
View ArticleLoosening The Privacy Reins Isn't So Bad, But Where's The Payoff?
The Register recently published an interesting piece looking at the other, less-discussed side of the online privacy debate: what are users getting in return? Writer Matt Asay doesn't have a huge...
View ArticleIf ACTA Is So Great, Where Are All The Supporters Extolling Its Virtues?
One of the striking features of the ACTA debate is the deafening silence from those who are in favor of it. Maybe that's down to the SOPA effect: companies and organizations are frightened of being...
View ArticleNot This Again: IEEE Plays Up Bogus 'Digital Sharecropping' Argument Again
Nearly six years ago, we wrote about the ridiculousness of Nick Carr's suggestion that Web 2.0 was all about "digital sharecropping", in which online service providers are somehow "exploiting" users...
View ArticleEU VP On Aaron Swartz: If Our Laws Hold Back Benefits From Openness, We...
As Techdirt has reported over the last ten days, the death of Aaron Swartz has provoked an outpouring of grief from friends and colleagues, who understandably wish to express their shock and anger at...
View ArticleAfter 20 Years, It's Clear NAFTA Has Failed To Deliver Promised Benefits; So...
Both TPP and TAFTA/TTIP are based on the premise that by boosting trade and investment, general prosperity will increase too. And yet, despite the huge scale of the plans, and their major potential...
View ArticleCopyright Week: If We Want To Get Copyright Right, It's Time To Go Back To...
All week we've been posting stories for Copyright Week, discussing important elements of copyright law that are at risk of getting trampled or destroyed in the effort to reform copyright. These are...
View ArticleHow Does Taking Away A Popular Feature 'Improve Netflix'?
I am not currently a Netflix customer, but one of the features of the service that I thought was quite useful (and I know plenty of people who use it actively) was the "profiles" feature that let a...
View ArticleUnderstanding The Difference Between Price And Value; Product And Benefit
Earlier this year, in response to yet another editorial somewhere where someone insisted that if something has a price of zero, it means that people don't think it has any value, we pointed out that...
View ArticleThe Benefits Of Piracy Aren't Always In The Expected Places
One of the issues that comes up when we discuss the economics of infinite goods is people too often falsely define the product that's being sold as the market, rather than the benefit. As we mentioned...
View ArticleIf You're Taking Away Features From Users, Don't Tell Them It's For Their Own...
Sometimes, I really wonder if companies think their users are stupid. There are times when they treat them that way. My favorite examples are when companies are taking away features or raising prices,...
View ArticleThe Psychology Of Externalities: Only I Can Benefit
To understand the economics of the digital era, at some point or another you need to dig pretty deep into the issue of externalities -- a topic on which there's been a lot of recent research. However,...
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