alt Hacker News"Most people like things that are free. Obviously. I myself make good use of my library card."
Libraries are not free. They're paid for out of taxes, and my local council is very forceful in collecting them. Libraries tend to buy most of their books (and pay lending fees to the authors most of the time). Despite attempts to turn libraries into voluntary services, many public libraries still have paid staff.
"That sucks. But is besides the point. The key is consent. You didn't consent to that. The author of this book chose to make it freely available. Just like you are making your comments on hn freely available. its all about choice."
No, it's not just about consent but the affect on others. Let's say we have ten bands, and seven of them tell bars they're willing to play for nothing... That means the other three are unlikely to get paid work as a result. If people keep handing out free hot dogs, that means the hot dog seller down the road isn't going to sell any.
Why are people so disgusted at my proposal that people are paid for work? Even Marxist-orientated societies like the USSR and Cuba pay/paid people (including writers!) for their work.
It is easy to do unpaid work when you have money already and many don't. I'm beginning to think I'm talking to a bunch of rich kids here.
"Nobody "pocketed it". They keep a reserve for unexpected expenses or if fundraising goes poorly. There are plenty of things you can fault the Wikimedia Foundation for, but this seems like a stupid one. Obviously they are going to keep some money in the bank, just in case something unexpected happens."
I edited Wikipedia for fifteen years. Despite some deletions, there are still thousands upon thousands of my words up there, and dozens of articles which I started. I never got paid anything for it, in fact I constantly had to deal with obnoxious behaviour on there from administrators who kept enshittifying content and leaving me rude messages. That's what destroyed my good will. Only a handful of admin ever bothered to thank me for it (and yes I did have some medals/badges).
So Wikipedia and Wikimedia have plenty of my work, and other people's, and are making money off it, but most of the editors aren't. (Same with IMDB. Plenty of my work on there. Nothing to show for it, and they advertise on there.) Wikimedia is maybe not even the main profiteer off it, since AI is quite clearly raiding it for content and so are various businesses.
> Libraries are not free. They're paid for out of taxes, and my local council is very forceful in collecting them. Libraries tend to buy most of their books (and pay lending fees to the authors most of the time).
But you must admit that authors make more money on an individual book sale then the amount they make on a library lending the same copy to hundreds of people.
> No, it's not just about consent but the affect on others.
indeed, it seems like you want to profit off the labour of others by forcing them to set a specific price for their labour to artificially raise prices. Why should you or anyone else profit off the labour of others?
> Why are people so disgusted at my proposal that people are paid for work?
Because this is a strawman and not what you or other people are actually saying.
> Even Marxist-orientated societies like the USSR and Cuba pay/paid people (including writers!) for their work.
Why are you so surprised? Having fixed renumeration for work that everyone abides by like you are arguing for is generally a very marxist belief. The capitalist belief is that everyone should set their own prices and undercut each other as much as it makes sense for each individual to do so in order for the overall market to be most efficient.
The fundamental belief of capitalism is the free market. You are arguing against the free market.
> It is easy to do unpaid work when you have money already and many don't. I'm beginning to think I'm talking to a bunch of rich kids here.
Just because the good is free does not mean the labour is unpaid. I am paid to write software that ultimately becomes open source. The author of the book we are talking about is getting paid, probably more than most authors do.
People make money in all sorts of different ways.
> I edited Wikipedia for fifteen years. Despite some deletions, there are still thousands upon thousands of my words up there, and dozens of articles which I started. I never got paid anything for it, in fact I constantly had to deal with obnoxious behaviour on there from administrators who kept enshittifying content and leaving me rude messages. That's what destroyed my good will. Only a handful of admin ever bothered to thank me for it (and yes I did have some medals/badges).
Were you mislead in your decision to contribute to Wikipedia? Wikipedia doesn't pretend to pay contributors. To put it bluntly, part of being an adult is to accept responsibility for the things you do. If you contributed to Wikipedia, knowing the terms of that, that choice is on you.
That said, given that you are complaining about admins (who are also unpaid) i can't help but wonder if the issue at hand is simply that Wikipedia didn't think your labour was particularly valuable despite it being free.