{"id":150,"date":"2003-09-27T04:46:12","date_gmt":"2003-09-27T09:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/2003\/09\/dead-end-conversations\/"},"modified":"2003-09-27T04:46:12","modified_gmt":"2003-09-27T09:46:12","slug":"dead-end-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/2003\/09\/dead-end-conversations\/","title":{"rendered":"dead-end conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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:<\/p>\n

blah blah blah blah…. music business model links and brief comments… blah blah blah…
\n[person_a] it sounds like quickly you are at the micropayment level
\n[me] i think anytime you talk about individual “tracks” you’re pretty much automatically into micropayments
\n[me] depending on your definition of “tracks” and “micropayments” of course \ud83d\ude42
\n[person_a] true
\n[person_b] define micro
\n[person_b] centipayments
\n[person_b] micro implies 10^-6
\n[person_c] does mini imply 10^-3?
\n[person_b] no, milli does
\n[person_b] decipayments<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

i’m not impressed with our ability to define the problem.<\/p>\n

micro<\/a> means “very small” or “involving minute quantities or variations” it is also<\/u> 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.<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

update<\/strong>: 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rojisan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}