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

Potlatch (was: Napster / Elvis)

Author:Jim Carrico
Posted:6/29/2000; 10:51:29 AM
Topic:Napster / Elvis
Msg #:18267 (In response to 18259)
Prev/Next:18266 / 18268

What is interesting about this situation is the culture. Culture is what people do, it's not something you buy.

And a revolution is a cultural event. It is wise to recall a piece of advice given several hundred years ago, but which still applies: "those who make half a revolution are digging their own graves." Not that the RIAA/MPAA are going to be setting up firing squads just yet - the point is that the cultural revolution of the internet must necessarily go further if it is to avoid being rolled back.

One more point about succesful revolutions - most of them have at one time or another paid for themselves by printing their own money. As a content developer, I've been waiting for years for a standard cash format, capable of supporting micropayments, to establish itself. The banking institutions, who should be leading the way here, have made it perfectly clear that they have no intention of developing any such thing, for the same reason that the RIAA has had no interest in developing downloadable music - it flattens the playing field, and would force them to give up some of the very significant (and ultimately unfair) advantages that they have over present and future competitors.

I'm tired of waiting, I think what we need is to develop a series of protocols that does for the exchange of value what TCP/IP and HTTP have done for the exchange of information. It has to be something that is not owned by anyone. The platform without the platform vendor. keywords: many-to-many; low-tech; open standards.

I live in Vancouver BC - until about a hundred years ago the local economy was based on the custom of Potlatch, a gift festival in which social status was established by a sort of pecking order of generosity - whoever could give away the most goods and commodities was the most important person in the tribe. in this way wealth was continuously re-distributed, and social hierarchy established. This custom reached a very high level of development on the northwest coast, no doubt due to the abundance of the local ecosystem, but in fact it is found in one form or another in all cultures, (eg. Christmas) and other than money or barter economies, it is the only form of exchange human societies have ever known. The internet and the WWW display many attributes of this type of economy - look at Amazon: they have achieved their level of status by losing money on every sale. Just about everything that is interesting about the net can be connected to this notion of the gift in some way. (remember Aretha!)

An important point: attendees at potlatch festivals, who partook of the hosts magnanimity, were tacitly obligated to reciprocate, at some unspecified future time. Not by pulling out their wallet and forking over the cash (or whatever the equivalent might have been) - which would be a terrible insult; but by thoughtfully preparing their own potlatch, to which everyone whose gifts they had accepted would be invited. In other words, such a system depends on the mutuality of the gift. Napster and Gnutella fit perfectly with this model. The obvious problem is that the artists, the initial creators of the goods being transferred, are not partaking of this mutuality. We desperately need some way to do this.

Help me out here - je suis ne ce pas un programmer! I have registered the name potlatch.net, and intend that it should be used to develop and promote this idea. Any comment or suggestions?

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