dead-end conversations
tonight i was trying to spark a little discussion about music business models, since that’s one of those occupying a lot of my time. it didn’t get very far. with the frustration of running into a dead-end, i think i’ll keep the guilty nameless, but it went something like this:
blah blah blah blah…. music business model links and brief comments… blah blah blah…
[person_a] it sounds like quickly you are at the micropayment level
[me] i think anytime you talk about individual “tracks” you’re pretty much automatically into micropayments
[me] depending on your definition of “tracks” and “micropayments” of course 🙂
[person_a] true
[person_b] define micro
[person_b] centipayments
[person_b] micro implies 10^-6
[person_c] does mini imply 10^-3?
[person_b] no, milli does
[person_b] decipayments
and shortly thereafter, it became a dead-end. i managed to come to a common language quickly with “person_a” but that wasn’t good enough for the rest of the participants. call that a partial success, maybe? but the substance of the conversation still vanished in a flood of math and si prefixes.
i’m not impressed with our ability to define the problem.
micro means “very small” or “involving minute quantities or variations” it is also an si prefix, but not necessarily so. and payments aren’t the same as dollars, so micropayments aren’t the same as microdollars. i didn’t feel like arguing about definitions until we found a common set of definitions that everyone could agree on, the discussion was over.
i’ve got things to think about. you’ve got interesting perspectives. can someone tell me how i can discuss the model with you and skip some of the constantly re-debating the definitions? we’re missing something valuable by constantly picking the nits (and so often, the same old nits).
update: just in case there’s any confusion, i’m not pissed about this. just frustrated – and to me there’s a big difference. we have these incredible communications tools, but it often (and this is one example) feels like we haven’t figured out how to communicate. text is such a limited medium, and i’ve often said as much. the real loss that happens with these things is the “shutdown” – and this was just a brutally clear example, so i had to use it. i harbor no ill-will toward any of the “persons” mentioned. really.