On Free Software and Communalisim in the Minds of Gamers

Long title, *whew*. Anyway, I was sitting there, thinking about the service that Blogger and Live Journal offers, and got to thinking: "Why would I ever pay for this? It's not something I would expect to have to pay for." And at that moment it hit me, BAM!: "Wait a second... This service they provide me isn't free to them, it costs money, just like running Motoko. I don't collect a fee for my project, mostly because I don't see how I could anyway. But that means they spend money on it too... So why should I feel so important as to think that they should GIVE me this service." So I stopped and though about all the things that I expected SHOULD be free: search engines, blog systems, online comics, etc. And I realized that NONE of those things are free to the people that run them. Now most search engines sustain themselves on "preferred listings" and banner ads, and blog systems do it by having at least some paying costumers who support a louse like me who uses the software and storage for free, and web comics sustain themselves on "fanboy" items (tshirts and the like) and I realized that I really should contribute to these companies and individuals who are providing me with these services. Especially blogger since there are absolutely 0 ads ANYWHERE on my blog or on the blogger main page.

But then I thought: "Ok, so I take a bunch of free, non-free stuff for granted, but why?" This is when I realized what it was; the society, at least the part of it that I belong to, has been tainted by the extreme commercialism of the '90s and formed a communalist system. Not that it's really all that noble or anything (since it's driven by personal greed and rationalization,) but people in my generation typically work on the premise that anything non-consumable and easily duplicated should be shared. This includes music, software, ideas, etc. This would explain why I expected the Blogger and Live Journal systems to be free, why music/game piracy is so rampant, and the entire open source community (of which I am both a giver and a taker.)

But this poses a problem, as with any social revolution, the communalist viewpoint is the exact antithesis of the commercialist view, just like the prudishness of the '50s created the sexual revolution in the '60s. The problem is that both systems, at least for the moment, must coexist. So what can we do to help these two differing view points cooperate until one of them becomes the dominant social viewpoint? I think that answering that might be the biggest challenge facing our generation. And as for me, I have no good ideas.

P2P vs. 401(K) in an all out battle to the Bank!

Mood: Contemplative.