Gonna be real honest here, I would have taken that in a heartbeat. It’s an open source project, I could disappear with my money and the project could be continued from a different fork without ads. The only thing you’re really sacrificing is your reputation and with enough money I don’t care.
Which is precisely why humanity will be just another of many dead end evolutionary cul-de-sacs in Earth’s natural history.
I’ve come to peace with that, but this is a nice microcosm of the core reason. We can do better, we know better, but at the end of the day, almost all of us will just take the animalistic dopamine rush of winning.
Live together or die alone. We choose the second one like breathing.
If most humans were like Kempf (we’re not), we’d actually have a chance.
I don’t think this hypothetical is about winning so much as never having to worry about your needs being met again. The calculus changes completely for a lot of people (not optimistic enough to say most) if that’s not part of the equation.
What are you talking about? Capitalism is the system that focused on (in some countries even created) the “middle class”, because it’s beneficiary to have a whole group of people that have all their needs met and have disposable income to keep the machine running.
If you don’t have money for iPads, cars, vacations, avocado toast and fancy lattes, capitalism grinds to a halt and crumbles.
The biggest companies and richest people of the world and not selling bread, water and shelter. They are selling fashion electronics, electric cars and ads on entertainment websites.
The middle class was created by the economic rights and protections provided by The New Deal and decades of unionization efforts. Crediting capitalism is not only disingenuous but also downright insulting to those who fought capitalists tooth and nail for what you’re crediting those capitalists for.
Actually the term was coined at the 1939 Worlds Fair and popularized in '44 with Roosevelt’s signing of the GI Bill, but if you have even the smallest shred of evidence for your claims, go ahead, I’m humoring.
Right, but at cost to others, and attempting to minimize the cost to others trying to rationalize it. That’s the point. Call it winning, call it succeeding, call it whatever you like, its me over us. The idea of accepting your benefit at the loss of numerous others tears people en masse down. Maybe another branch would become as popular, maybe not, but such choices are presented frequently in our civilization, and the choice is usually to take the win at other’s expense.
Regardless, we are what we are and on a long enough time scale what we are will destroy us. That’s not as sad to me as all the other creatures we’ll take with us, but even we won’t be able to sterilize all terran life, so the Earth will recover from us. Life will go on after we successfully fuck ourselves trying to fuck one another. I find solace in that.
There’s virtually nothing that is not, at some scale, at a cost to others while benefitting oneself. Someone is always hungrier, sicker, whatever. However, the magnitude is what matters. Not every cost is equal. The creator of some free software putting in ads is a shame, but not a tragedy. Life will go on. We are not entitled to the fruit of their labor for free if they don’t want to provide it any more.
It’s all a symptom. We can’t revolve our expectations around people giving us all free labor out of the kindness of their hearts with how our society is structured. It’s great so many do, and extremely admirable, but I’d never fault any of them for going another way.
Because it makes us feel safe, and it makes us feel like we’ll be happy.
I have a Master’s in Psychology, and I will always remember the disheartening feeling when I learned the most prevalent and accepted theory of what defines human happiness. Know what it is?
Comparison to others.
Very literally, the person in the tribe with the biggest mud hut is probably happier than you in your Chevrolet when your neighbor pulls up in a Cadillac.
What do you mean by the person in the tribe? Are you talking about a hypothetical tribal society and their happiness when removed from the civilized world as opposed to people in more modern communities?
That is a very western, independent cultural paradigm you have there. Western culture and values are not shared by everyone in the west let alone all humanity.
Only a few of us have strong narcissistic and anti-social personality traits, but they are vocal and usually end up in positions of power.
I would argue the vast majority of humanity throughout history is more selfless and willing to sacrifice and work towards a goal than you give us credit for. Look at the big picture and think about how much innovation has come from a place not driven by profit potential but for THE potential to go further.
Creator gets a huge payout, well deserved. Users install VLC, see ads, exit, search web for “VLC ads”, see the fork, re-install having wasted 2-3 minutes total. Eventually “VLC Origin” is the only one anybody talks about.
Those who can stomach ads don’t bother finding the ad-free version, and still use great software. Even the advertisers win.
I would take the money, put ads in the installer, but warn everyone about them and link them to another repo with an ad-free installer. I would also constantly slander the company
Gonna be real honest here, I would have taken that in a heartbeat. It’s an open source project, I could disappear with my money and the project could be continued from a different fork without ads. The only thing you’re really sacrificing is your reputation and with enough money I don’t care.
Most people are like you.
Which is precisely why humanity will be just another of many dead end evolutionary cul-de-sacs in Earth’s natural history.
I’ve come to peace with that, but this is a nice microcosm of the core reason. We can do better, we know better, but at the end of the day, almost all of us will just take the animalistic dopamine rush of winning.
Live together or die alone. We choose the second one like breathing.
If most humans were like Kempf (we’re not), we’d actually have a chance.
I don’t think this hypothetical is about winning so much as never having to worry about your needs being met again. The calculus changes completely for a lot of people (not optimistic enough to say most) if that’s not part of the equation.
Which is exactly why Capitalism keeps us barely holding on, by design.
What are you talking about? Capitalism is the system that focused on (in some countries even created) the “middle class”, because it’s beneficiary to have a whole group of people that have all their needs met and have disposable income to keep the machine running.
If you don’t have money for iPads, cars, vacations, avocado toast and fancy lattes, capitalism grinds to a halt and crumbles.
The biggest companies and richest people of the world and not selling bread, water and shelter. They are selling fashion electronics, electric cars and ads on entertainment websites.
Did you just unironically say Avocado Toast?
No, I wrote it.
The middle class was created by the economic rights and protections provided by The New Deal and decades of unionization efforts. Crediting capitalism is not only disingenuous but also downright insulting to those who fought capitalists tooth and nail for what you’re crediting those capitalists for.
The middle class existed long before the new deal or unions. Like a century before.
Actually the term was coined at the 1939 Worlds Fair and popularized in '44 with Roosevelt’s signing of the GI Bill, but if you have even the smallest shred of evidence for your claims, go ahead, I’m humoring.
Go check the Wikipedia sources
Right, but at cost to others, and attempting to minimize the cost to others trying to rationalize it. That’s the point. Call it winning, call it succeeding, call it whatever you like, its me over us. The idea of accepting your benefit at the loss of numerous others tears people en masse down. Maybe another branch would become as popular, maybe not, but such choices are presented frequently in our civilization, and the choice is usually to take the win at other’s expense.
Regardless, we are what we are and on a long enough time scale what we are will destroy us. That’s not as sad to me as all the other creatures we’ll take with us, but even we won’t be able to sterilize all terran life, so the Earth will recover from us. Life will go on after we successfully fuck ourselves trying to fuck one another. I find solace in that.
There’s virtually nothing that is not, at some scale, at a cost to others while benefitting oneself. Someone is always hungrier, sicker, whatever. However, the magnitude is what matters. Not every cost is equal. The creator of some free software putting in ads is a shame, but not a tragedy. Life will go on. We are not entitled to the fruit of their labor for free if they don’t want to provide it any more.
It’s all a symptom. We can’t revolve our expectations around people giving us all free labor out of the kindness of their hearts with how our society is structured. It’s great so many do, and extremely admirable, but I’d never fault any of them for going another way.
Okay but why would we all take the money? Because we want to be rich? Or because we need to be rich in order to live a comfortable life?
Because it makes us feel safe, and it makes us feel like we’ll be happy.
I have a Master’s in Psychology, and I will always remember the disheartening feeling when I learned the most prevalent and accepted theory of what defines human happiness. Know what it is?
Comparison to others.
Very literally, the person in the tribe with the biggest mud hut is probably happier than you in your Chevrolet when your neighbor pulls up in a Cadillac.
Yes, we really are that small as a rule.
What do you mean by the person in the tribe? Are you talking about a hypothetical tribal society and their happiness when removed from the civilized world as opposed to people in more modern communities?
Yes. A hypothetical tribe. I’m saying happiness is completely relative, but based on comparison to immediate peers.
That is a very western, independent cultural paradigm you have there. Western culture and values are not shared by everyone in the west let alone all humanity.
Only a few of us have strong narcissistic and anti-social personality traits, but they are vocal and usually end up in positions of power.
I would argue the vast majority of humanity throughout history is more selfless and willing to sacrifice and work towards a goal than you give us credit for. Look at the big picture and think about how much innovation has come from a place not driven by profit potential but for THE potential to go further.
And that’s why your picture isn’t on the front page of Lemmy 2day!
I think I would manage.
My picture already isn’t there every day. I’d rather have my picture still not there AND a few millions in my account…
Who needs a reputation when you have money ! I’d do the same , hopefully he is atleast not broke.
Well, with enough money you can buy a better reputation!
Almost the best of both worlds right?
Creator gets a huge payout, well deserved. Users install VLC, see ads, exit, search web for “VLC ads”, see the fork, re-install having wasted 2-3 minutes total. Eventually “VLC Origin” is the only one anybody talks about.
Those who can stomach ads don’t bother finding the ad-free version, and still use great software. Even the advertisers win.
(This assumes no abusive telemetry / spyware.)
Could even use the money for new open source projects or for funding the VLC fork.
Firefox is like this in fact, just put the option to deactivate or fork open source and everyone is happy.
I would take the money, put ads in the installer, but warn everyone about them and link them to another repo with an ad-free installer. I would also constantly slander the company