I’ve been meaning to make a post on some economic ideas I’ve been reading about, namely the contrast between the economics of scarcity and the economics of abundance. I’ll get to it soon, but let this post serve as a precursor in the meantime.
Gene Simmons is a funny guy, though I guess that wasn’t really his intention in this recent interview (found via Techdirt).
I’m not going to debunk his argument since Mike Masnick from Techdirt handled that quite nicely, and I’m planning to address the general topic in later posts. Rather, I’ll just include some highlights (and the links above).
Gene Simmons on the record industry’s biggest mistake – not suing enough people:
Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid’s face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning.
His lack of response to the question of Radiohead and Trent Reznor:
I open a store and say “Come on in and pay whatever you want.” Are you on f*cking crack? Do you really believe that’s a business model that works?
((Why does Billboard put a single asterisk in? What is that supposed to accomplish?))
Lastly, he begins comparing music to gold, completely missing the point that music is being shared so widely because it’s digital, because it’s not a physical good but can rather be easily copied. I was reading the quote, banging my head against my desk muttering, “no… no… noooo…” when Mike Masnick’s response turned my sighs into intense laughter:
Except that… no.
There’s much more to the response on Techdirt. But that last quote just about sums up Gene Simmon’s thoughts on the record industry and digital music.
