So many monopolies do this and they should all be disrupted. This is our world, and anyone telling us they get to gatekeep information exchange is not an ally. Google with Chrome, Apple with iPhone.
> Societal change can be so very slow, nonmonotonic, and profoundly discouraging. And yet here we are, making progress.
Encouraging, but we lost Aaron.
Sorry, but this is a worldview that universally leads to nastiness. It's everyone's world, and just as I don't have the right to sleep in your bed (even though it's "our" world and who are you to stop "us"?) we have to have a non-low resolution and non-tribal view of situations.
There is a way to think about this that clears that very low bar, and so this level of discourse is not necessary.
When someone wants to read a book in a bed you manufactured, you charge the author 30%. When someone wants to watch a TV show in a bed you manufactured, you take a cut of the subscription revenue and force them to use your accounts and billing system.
When someone wants to have sex in a bed you manufactured, you have to vet them first and you only let them deploy on Tuesdays. And if they don't know the latest moves, they're out. Also they have to wear your condoms, meet people through your dating app, and pretty much obey your rules or they're banned from your beds.
And the other bed manufacturer? You get kickbacks from them. It's just the two of you, controlling all the beds in the world.
The problem is the bed shouldn't really be yours anymore. And you've extended your reach way beyond the original moment of sale into literally every activity the purchaser performs.
Why does Apple get to control what dating apps I use? Why do they get a cut of Kickstarter revenue? Why can't I write software the way I want and give it away to others? It's just silicon, after all. Whatever happened to open computing and monopoly busting? Apple's vice grip just keeps getting tighter as they ensnare more and more of the world.
The trouble with the liberal notion of property rights is that it has things exactly backwards. It posits private property as primary, and the common good as a perhaps regrettable, but necessary concession of the private good. But it is the common good that is prior and justifies the private good.
So, in this case, does a company like Elsevier serve the common good?
If you find yourself in a famine with a warehouse of food, and your thought is "how can I exploit this situation for maximum profit" you are doing it wrong.
People disagree about their higher moral principles. Resolving to absoluteness requires violent resolution.
And what do you think the implication of that is? For example, in the GGP's scenario about the warehouse of food in a famine?
That point is often used as part of a non sequitur excuse to behave badly (e.g. people don't agree on everything, therefore lets have a free for all ruled by only the market).
Huh?