Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Amy Wohl on Instant Messaging

Author:Christopher Short
Posted:8/2/1999; 6:03:26 PM
Topic:Amy Wohl on Instant Messaging
Msg #:9026 (In response to 9005)
Prev/Next:9025 / 9027

i was surprised to see Dave advocate the use of public funds for devlopment purposes yesterday.

The examples he provided have certain economic characteristics which make sense for the coercive use of government powers to fund them - such as defence. Economic cases can also be made for schooling and fire departments (though not as strongly as say defence.

What Dave described ("public" information - to enable application development) did not strike me as the type of goods for which public monies could be justified.

I was also surprised by Amy Wohl description that advertising has nearly destroyed television. A common misperceptioin is that free to air television is provided for us to view - when in fact, the audience is the product that is being delivered to marketers.

That people want to exchange information freely is quite reasonable - it's a whole step further to advocate scarce public funds for that task.

Cheers, Christopher

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