If I can sell something physical that I don't need anymore, I should be able to do so with the things I "bought" on, let's say, Steam.
I know it’s not really a zero sum game, but it’s obvious it would have a significant impact.
And I’m not even talking about media, which I’m sure some platform would start mass renting/selling in a fully automated fashion (upload all your licenses, watch whatever you want anytime because there will always be somewhere a license which is unused and a copy of the movie which is not actively watched at this moment). Basically they would only sell as many copies as the peak number of simultaneous watchers…
That would be amazing actually.
I'd expect the opposite: competition between the "used" and the "new" markets would drive prices down, not up. Mathematically, you'd be increasing the supply, while keeping the demand nearly the same, which in the traditional supply and demand model means lower prices.
As well as making the most expensive price the same globally e.g. buying apps in Bangladesh to resell in the US.
Making the entire industry worse off for everyone else except you.
https://www.androidauthority.com/youtube-premium-cost-around...
The idea that every developer is going to reduce their revenue by 20x is delusional.
Seems a little to late for that, everything is a bloody in-app purchase or subscription already. I really wish I could filter out apps with in-app purchases or subscriptions when searching the app store, but that would probably ruin the business of countless companies.
When you resell a physical item it’s worn and costs time & effort to resell. Software is very different. That means no one would ever buy the software from the developer once a few copies are sold and can be passed around.
That would force SaaS even harder, since developers would need to justify it being a license.
Users can't gift/resell what they don't own ;-)
In theory this could’ve happened with DVDs, but it was too much hassle for a single disc to be shared by that many people.
You could compromise with restrictions on how many times a file could be sold etc, but that concedes the point of a digital good not really being your property. And it might be used as a Trojan horse for even more DRM and surveillance.
You're not thinking creatively enough. One day, somebody's going to use the law and make the "sales" API-driven. This will then turn it into a rental service where you can "buy" a game for two hours for $37.50 and then "sell" the game back to the mother ship for $36.50 of credit. The mother ship being, of course, whatever VC firm puts millions into having the world's largest Steam account.
I don't have to like the current ecosystem of no-transfers and DRM, to acknowledge breaking all that down would have major economic consequences against studios. Right now is especially not the time to be asking for this, because the whole video game industry is in deep financial trouble at the moment.
Books you take out for a week or more usually, games rentals and films (from the olden days when I'd get to go to an actual store) were at least several days.
Renting a film is something you could do from the second you start watching it to the second it finishes. Going from a few days to hours makes this in the region of 10-100 times faster turnaround.
Having to physically move things just adds significant time.
With software you can share it out to anyone in the world.
Isn’t it hilarious how having property rights and freedoms over Things You Paid For is now unthinkable??
Digitising your library example, would likely result in a price of zero. Someone like Apple would be well placed to turn its books app into a library of books it purchased once. And use this to get more hardware sales.
The current system of only one entity having rights isn’t desirable. But alternatives aren’t easy. Even if you tried to rule out sales for profit then marketplaces and bulletin boards would make things complicated.
Most people aren't interested in routinely selling and buying their media, so I would wager that most digital copies will end up on the digital "shelf" just like physical copies do, rather than being routinely sold off.
Lending them without cost, like a library, I don't think they could stop you. But commercially renting out the physical media wasn't an automatic right, as far as I know.
> Borrow and enjoy audiobooks, eBooks, comics, movies, TV, magazines, or music everywhere you have a screen-your computer, your phone, your car, even your TV. All you need is a library card.
Also, Libby [1]
A popular book can change hand a million times and save a lot of money, carbon emission, tree cutting, paper production cost, transport and logistics. The problem is careful usage and patience, i.e. not spilling coffee or food and waiting may be a year before a copy is available.