A Sunday Morning Thought Experiment (Or, Radiohead, I Love You...)
Posted by Prof. Goose on October 7, 2007 - 8:58am
Topic: Economics/Finance
Tags: in rainbows, radiohead [list all tags]
I don't know if you are aware of what the band Radiohead is doing with their new album release, but I love them for it. (Then again I loved them already well before this.) From the G&M:
Radiohead, the seminal British band known for its experimental sound, is now experimenting with something else: a new delivery format. Its first album in four years will be available for download from the Internet in 10 days, the band announced late Sunday night. And the price? Whatever fans feel like paying.
The news was made public on a website at www.inrainbows.com (the name of the new album), which features text links on a psychedelic rainbow background. When you click on a question mark next to the word "Price," you are taken to a page that says: "It's up to you." Clicking on another question mark takes you to another page that says: "No really. It's up to you."
Good on you fellas. This whole thing gets to many bigger points about our consumption culture, supply and demand, ownership rights of content, basic values in democracy, RIAA issues, music as art form versus music as commercialized crap through a middle man that has to sing for his supper, I could go on for hours.
But at the end of the day, this band wants you to hear their music, their contribution to the world. If you can give a dollar, or if you want to give a dollar, marvelous. If you can and want to give $30, marvelous. The value of the music, the information, the data is up to the person who wants that information...and that person's relative means can come into their decision to "consume the art."
Has Radiohead made money in the past that allows them this opportunity? Likely so. Will they make money this time? I hope they do. In my opinion, they already deserve compensation for the quality of their art; the quality of this gesture just adds to their status with me.
How does this tie in with energy? What can we learn from this about our energy future? I will let you all continue my little thought prompt in the comments...other than to say this: "Things do not have to be the way they are."
http://politics.reddit.com/info/2xbvx/comments
if you are so inclined...
Servers in restaurants do just fine and they operate the same way. Nothing is REQUIRED but people tip anyway. The cheapskates are cancelled out by those more generous and the server can earn a good living.
IMO it would be a good idea to make the minimun a penny. That would make people enter their credit card info and they'd probably say, "Well I'll pay a buck because it'd be silly to put a penny on my credit card."
I don't think I'm the only person in the world to have chosen not to have a credit card. I've got a debit card only, and it's not international and cannot be used on the internet. Sometimes it does feel like having a credit card would be great, but I have managed so far and really don't feel like making credit companies even richer and more powerful than they are already.
All too true, Jussi. An added benefit of not using a credit card: it makes it a little harder for Big Brother to stick his big nose over your shoulder.
Indeed. Now once I get rid of this damn internet connection, they'll never track me down! :D
A credit card is required to rent a car or a notel room. I'm not required to use the card.
I got a credit card that gives me a free mile for every dollar I spend. So I can go visit my family in California for free. The interest rate and annual fee is horrible but I pay it off every month and get enough free plane trips to make the annual fee worthwhile. I know it allows the NSA to track me down, but I'm not on the lam.
Anyways, the banks need those credit card fees so they can make more toxic mortgages.
RobertInTucson
I haven't escaped from reality. I have a daypass.
I've never been to America, but from what I've read and heard, it is very much more difficult to live there without a credit card than it is in Europe. I haven't booked a hotel room for some time now, but the last time I did, all they wanted was my name. Flights are the tricky thing: if you want to use any of the "no-frills" airlines, you need a credit card just to book. My answer has been not to fly. Better in so many ways, isn't it?
If I took the train, I wouldn't know which day I'd get home. Scheduled fourteen hours to LA, a five hour layover (which is good. You have a chance to make your connection) and another five hours up the coast. I could drive it in ten hours for sixty bucks in gas or pay almost two hundred for a train ticket. Europe has a train system with bullet trains but I wouldn't know about Finland. If you get homesick, we got a polar bear at the Tucson zoo.
RobertInTucson
I haven't escaped from reality. I have a daypass.
LOL, that sort of sruck a nerve! When I lived in London my friends called me "the polar bear", and the ones who were more vicious even called me "the polar viper". Just for the record, and this is the 1000th time I say this, we don't have polar bears (or vipers) in Finland.
As for the train services, they're pretty good, but if you're travelling from Helsinki to Lapland, the distance is such that you would probably prefer to fly. Also, connections between the east and the west of Finland are awkward.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk
We can get some Arizona elk and lash them up to a sleigh.
RobertInTucson
I haven't escaped from reality. I have a daypass.
What, you don't have reindeer in Arizona??? Elves? Anything fun?
You can still pay in the Internet without a credit card. I believe PayPal, and probably Google Checkout, can get funds directly from your bank account.
Although you might think that making Google or PayPal rich is worse than making the banks rich... I do not.
Frankly I haven't figured out if I could use my Finnish bank account on PayPal etc. I assumed it wouldn't work and have therefore refrained from buying stuff, which is good.
I retain a certain basic principle in using the Internet - I have never paid for anything on it, and never will. If money is required, I don't need it - and the whole Internet is only a click away.
I might add that a great free form and non-commercial (including NO government or corporate money) source of music is wfmu.org.
Sales at the record store have been in a tail spin. And the Artist only gets a buck a CD anyways. People are getting their music off the internet one way or another. Artists can sell their music off their own website for a buck and break even with what the labels will give you so Radiohead isn't taking a big financial risk. The issue is whether RH can get more publicity by giving their music away then they can by signing up with a major label. I would think so.
There's a new business model. Give the music away and make your money on the concerts. And the thirty dollar t-shirts and the five dollar beer. Well new is a relative term since the Grateful Dead has been doing this since before Garcia needed to shave, but now a lot of bands are doing this.
RobertInTucson
I haven't escaped from reality. I have a daypass.
Can you imagine if The Oil Drum made a blog post only once every four years, and people had to pay to read it?
It would have to be equivalent to The Killing Joke (Monty Python version, of course) for people to cough up any money. Instead, like most infotainment, the flood of products and alternatives has caused a price collapse.
I can imagine you pay a good buck on a book.
I've noticed that book prices printed on books at bookstores have skyrocketed. Most hardbacks are approaching $28 - $30.
Book prices haven't risen much if at all, if you take inflation into account.
What has changed is that people are buying fewer books. 70-80% of Americans didn't buy a book in the previous year. Not a cookbook, not a Harry Potter book, not a celebrity tell-all, not a Bible. Reading is becoming like classical music: a niche interest.
As a result, publishers are becoming more and more conservative. The midlist has practically vanished. I used to spend all my money on books, but I rarely buy them now. There just isn't much that interests me any more.
We have a very good and well stocked public library.
Heheh. I have even posted in my blog about that. Radiohead is also my favourite band. After hearing some of their musics, the other bands seem so naive and amateurish that I can't hear anything else for a while.
For one take, there is the issue of the labels going to die. The internet is going to subtitute them (or has the big potential), and they are going down the plug.
On the other hand, iTunes doesn't seem so well after this move by Radiohead highlighted the big flaw in Apple's strategy: they are *still* too stuck with the labels to porsuit new experiences by the fans and buyers. It's gonna backfire on them (Radiohead went to talks with iTunes for them to distribute the album, but they (RH) required that Apple sold the entire album and not single musics. Apple did not allow such buying experience, and so RH quit them).
Should this be a call for the total destruction of mediatizers? No. It's a one shot thing. It works for Radiohead, as I, being a common eMule music pirate (sue me at will), am really considering paying Radiohead for their music. The amount of respect they showed I think will go well with all of their listeners (out with the rape of paying 15 dollars per album, which is ridiculous). Most will not pay a dime, but I think they'll see good payings too.
My all time favorite band.
I used to read their forum and Thom would post regularly(99% sure it was him, really got on a rant sometimes that reminded me of TOD) and he/they are PO aware and very up on the current issues facing the world.
STOP WHISPERING - START SHOUTING!!!!!!!!
pablo honey
They should be. They have a link to TOD in their site and a note to "check this out".
Maybe Thorn posts here. Under another name.
RobertInTucson
I haven't escaped from reality. I have a daypass.
if you have any doubt Thom and the guys are PO-aware you should listen to "Down Is The New Up".
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tQ9le9DMd4Q
The consumerist culture is a truly new development in the history of human philosphies. This is the first culture based on the premise that Greed is Good, although there have been bouts of materialism in the last hundred and fifty years of the species existance on this planet, this is the first to totally abandon any spiritual values for one of the Deadly Sins.
It seems to me that we are suffering from an attitude problem as much as anything. Yes, the population has grown so that we are running short on absolute quantities of many physical substances.The average American uses 25 bbl/per year per capita in oil and gas, the average Canadian 26/bbl.
Is our actual standard of living going to decrease by cutting our energy useage? When its doing things like insulating windows, doors and attics or driving a hybrid coupe or sedan to the marina to play with your boat, rather than driving a chrysler SUV with a 440 cubic inch engine all the time so you can tow the boat to the lake one weekend a month doesn't strike me as a decrease in quality of life even though the absolute btu gasoline energy use is decreased by at least 1/3rd. And yet, according to the people that judge GDP as a product of BTU use, a person is at least 1/3rd more impoverished.
Although my example is a lot more extreme than real life for many people, the same is true for replacing a gas water heater with an on-demand electric water heater, which I did last week.I should pay off the cash difference within two years, but although its saving energy, its not going to decrease my lifestyle by using fewer BTU's.
The same is true through all areas of my life. I can only wear one pare of pants at one, and need no more than 3 or 4 pair, I own probably a dozen pair. I can sleep in only one bed, with only one woman (except in my vivid fantasy life) I own too big a house, with too much storage for stuff I use only occasionally. Although I'm middle class, I'm fantasticly wealthy by the standards of either history or half the people on the planet.
Because, what is real wealth? Loving people and being loved by them, having a decent diet, access to heatlth care and stimulating art and ideas, reasonable clothing and the money and freedom to travel is my definition, and I'm there as are most of us, pretty wealth, although impoverished by the standards of greed. Bob Ebersole
Although my example is a lot more extreme than real life for many people, the same is true for replacing a gas water heater with an on-demand electric water heater, which I did last week.I should pay off the cash difference within two years, but although its saving energy, its not going to decrease my lifestyle by using fewer BTU's.
Woaaaa.
With our prices around here it's 1.6x more expensive to heat water with electric resistance. Now, the pilot light on a typical tank is about $75/yr. If you're a big user it's impossible to save money. If someone else had to install the system then you'll likely never save money.
In my case we went with a 19 gallon electric tank - $20/yr to keep the tank warm and $60/yr heating water. That's compared to $75/yr to keep the gas tank warm and $15/yr heating water. It was 1/3 the cost of having a gas tank installed (because I'll cap and take out gas pipes; but not rig up a new gas tank).
Note that in our case the GHG emissions are about constant even though we're using 1/4 the energy that we were before.
The nice thing about electric is that when we go to time-of-day electricity pricing then our electric water heater gets 30% cheaper by only having it turn on at night and 19 gallons is so big that'll easily work.
What kills me is just how easy it is to sprawl and live in a mansion; compared to a more sustainable option. Unless you're out in the country and willing to build your own home - in the city it's a fortune to bash down / renovate a 1920's home and build something energy efficient. If you want to do a co-housing/eco-village sort of thing you're talking custom homes and are paying 30% more even if you're building 1,100 sq-ft instead of 1,500 sq-ft and that's before you can even add PV or solar water heating.
My wife recently posed a question wondering what we can do with $5k to live our values in a way that is visible to the neighbours and I've not found a way yet.
PV array - need to spend at least $10k, more like $20k
Solar water heating costs about $5k, payback >100 yr
EV a car is $20k minimum just for the conversion; and more
for my vision of a series hybrid with a 4hp battery
charger
Build that co-housing village - >>$1M; payback infinity
The cheapest thing to do is sell the home; move to somewhere else in surburbia and split the home so that we get 1,000 ft and there is a 400 sq-ft bachelor apt perhaps. But even that's 10's of thousands to move and passive solar wouldn't really be an option without signif. modifications....
Assuming you are in a North american car dependant suburb right now, don't want to move, and are looking for "showpiece items" how about:
- Going with a "greener" car i.e. a late model Toyota Echo. If you need other fuel burners use scooters or small motorcycles.
- Expanding the veg. garden into the front yard, or if that seems too extrememe at least loose the grass and grow your herbs and medicinals there, they can be made to look quite decorative.
- Dry laundry with a clothesline
- Install rain barrels on your downspouts
- Get more involved with a local environmental group that speaks to your concerns, if you can't find one that does that... start one.
- Facilitate running as many "Green Party" folks as possible in your next municipal election...
Depending on where you live, and if you have a fireplace, put in a wood burning stove or stove insert. It is so much more enjoyable heating your home with an efficient wood stove instead of gas or electric. Plus, if you cut and split your own wood, your neighbors will definitely notice.
praezel,
There's a couple of reasons I did the on-demand water heater besides the price. I'm often gone for a couple of weeks at a time, and I spend zero for a pilot and zero for hot water storage when I'm gone. And that's substantial.
I live in a house that was originally built in 1895 as a carriage house, and modernised into an arts and crafts house in 1924. The hot water heater was inside, taking up a good part of my kitchen because of the geometry, which I wanted for a kitchen table. This gave me the space I needed without an add-on, and so if I consider the extra $400 as against moving plumbing and adding on a little shed, its already more than paid for itself.
You're right about the cost of adding insulation and tightening up the house. My solution is to have window units for air and ceiling fans and only leaving them on when I'm home and in the room. I'm 4 blocks from the Gulf and get a wonderful sea-breeze, plus it hardly ever freezes in Galveston. I have a couple of space heaters and mostly just put on a light sweater at home. This though is a batchelor's solution in a semi-tropical climate, it wouldn't work with a wife and kids who were home 24/7 or if I were fixing the place up to sell instead of live in it. Bob Ebersole
Hi Bob,
I'm guessing our home's energy use falls well below that of our neighbours and, contrary to conventional thinking, the harder I work to reduce our consumption, the happier I am. We are a two-person household and our home is a conventional, forty-year old Cape Cod, about 230 square metres in size. As previously noted, it has been extensively overhauled to improve its thermal efficiency, but in terms of its outward appearance, it looks no different than any of its peers.
Our 12-month rolling electricity usage currently stands at 10,369 kWh; at the end of the next billing cycle, assuming temperatures remain seasonal, I hope to get this number below the 10K mark. Our propane consumption (cook top, dryer, BBQ and fireplaces) averages a little less than 0.25 litres per day and our heating oil consumption has fallen to 830 litres/year.
We're also fairly conscious of our water use and during the winter months we average between 80 and 90 litres/day. There's nothing too far out of the ordinary at work here -- basically, low-flow showerheads, low-flush toilets, a stingy BOSCH dishwasher and equally miserly front-load washer. In the summer months, our consumption typically falls in the range of 150 litres per day due to additional outdoor uses, but even at that, we're still running at about one-fifth that of the average user.
I could conceivably do more (e.g., add solar panels for DHW production or a rain water collection system), but given our rather modest needs, it would be hard to justify the added expense (as some may recall, I do pre-heat my laundry water with a standard garden hose).
I'm extremely fortunate to live in country as blessed as Canada and there's certainly nothing I lack in terms of personal comfort and physical well-being. It does sadden me that we squander our natural resources so needlessly, especially when compared to other nations who enjoy a standard of living not unlike our own. There's really no excuse why we can't do better... MUCH better.
Cheers,
Paul
I would like somebody to give me an example of a human culture that is both rich and non-consumerist.
I believe "consumerism" is part of human nature and that if we have the where-with-all, we will consume. It all goes back to FOOD.
I think Nathan John Hagens would agree with you--because that's the way a lot of us crazy-assed people are wired--hence the term homo economicus...
but in this Sci Am piece, you'll see not everyone rolls like that:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=27333871-E7F2-99DF-3A66FD19F6...
I love RH. It's not like I can play an instrument or anything, but if I were able to make music good enough to sell, I'd give it away. Here are my reasons:
The whole modern music business has a history of rapine and plunder, from the sheet music and edison cylinder days up until now. It would feel great to give it away!
Would I as an artist really need to make millions of dollars (or die trying to) to be happy? If I could play an instrument well I'd be so fsckin happy I'd play for folks all day for free, just feed me. Honestly, a decent living is all I'd ask, no need for the stress of an "indecent" one.
Now we get more esoteric....
Music is our language. Beyond a decent living for the artist, I'd feel dirty taking more. And I'd gladly release books, tapes, etc., for a reasonable price showing people *exactly* how I play this or that, no more guesses or supposedly accurate transcriptions of riffs that aren't.
Any halfway decent artist can make a killing on lessons anyway. Don't get me started on music teachers, let's just say they make good money.
Now, I'd like to suggest that bands/artists will eventually come around to what I'll call the "religion" model. No one will charge me a dime to become, say, Catholic. If I WANT to, I'm welcome to buy those Catholic candles, St. Chris medals, all kinds of Catholic stuff. Same goes for other sects and churches. The basics are free and then one is free to pay or not pay for the frills as one likes. With radio, music started going this way. (Those of us old enough will remember the "album shows" on FM radio late at night, with a pause for you to turn over your tape!) It's just going more this way lately with internet as the new radio.
PS I have no idea why the band calls itself Radiohead but that name sure works on a number of levels.
Radiohead was a music from Talking Heads that they really loved. Nothing more than that.
Yeah music lessons is a living. Some who can
teach can't perform for squat and some who are
miraculous on a stage can't teach anything
except maybe to friends.
Musicians are different. They make music 'cause
they have to. Some really can't do anything else.
I know musicians everyone on this board has
heard and shelled out for their funeral expenses
Plenty of others you've all heard who scrabble
day to day.
You are always always allowed to tip the band.
And if you got an event, a party, an occasion,
get some live music. Talk to someone whose
music you like and find out just how cheap they
work. Give them a little money and enjoy.
old hippie
its true of any kind of real artist, that they make their music because the have to, just as any real painter paints, writer writes or sculptor, makes objects. If you've ever received the priviledge to make some real art you know what I mean, it comes from a realm that transcends the intellect. In fact, sometimes the more a person can say about a piece the less he/she "knows" the piece.
I've got a friend named Cleveland Turner thats a found objects sculptor thats almost a perfect embodiment of this. He's an outside artist, a folk artist who lives in Houston about 2 miles from the ASPO Convention if anyone wants to go meet him during the conference. He's illiterate, I'm sure many people would consider him mentally disabled. But Google him, he's called the Flower Man, Houston and check out his house/art installation he's got a national reputation. Cleveland can no more not make art than the mocking bird in the tree next door could live without singing.
The reason I bring up the Flower Man is creativity. Creativity can't be forced, it seems to come up from a well, a cenote', in every human. Most people just walk around it. I personally can access the same place with meditation sometimes, but as I said, its out of my control, but my friend Cleveland lives there and so do a group of guys like Radiohead .
And i think being to tap into this unconcious source is going to be the secret that gets the world through peak oil. So call that technomisticalcornucopianism (sarcanol alert) Bob Ebersole
I think exactly the same thing.
In my better moods.
Its a tension thats been there for a while...
FOR FREE Lyrics
Artist: Joni Mitchell
Album: Ladies of The Canyon (1970)
I slept last night in a good hotel
I went shopping today for jewels
The wind rushed around in the dirty town
And the children let out from the schools
I was standing on a noisy corner
Waiting for the walking on green
Across the street he stood
And he played real good
On his clarinet, for free
Now me I play for fortunes
And those velvet curtain calls
I've got a black limousine
And two gentlemen
Escorting me to the halls
And I play if you have the money
Or if you're a friend to me
But the one man band
By the quick lunch stand
He was playing real good, for free
Nobody stopped to hear him
Though he played so sweet and high
They knew he had never
Been on their T.V.
So they passed his music by
I meant to go over and ask for a song
Maybe put on a harmony...
I heard his refrain
As the signal changed
He was playing real good, for free
They aren't the first to try this. There are gourmet restaurants that operate this way: you pay what you think the meal is worth. Supposedly, most people pay more than similar restaurants charge for similar meals. Presumably because they don't want to be thought cheap.
It's different online, of course, where people are anonymous. But Stephen King did this for his serial. Riding the Bullet, I think it was. He threatened not to finish writing it is he didn't get enough contributions. There were a lot of freeloaders, but people who wanted to read the whole thing paid extra to make up for them.
In the case of music, the artists get so little of the money that they may actually make more more selling direct...once they have an audience.
I dunno, it's kind of a microcosm of our economy. It used to be that if you had talent, you could make a reasonable living: as an actor, or musician, or baseball player, or writer, etc. Now you have a very few who make obscene amounts of money, while most of the rest can't make a living at it.
This is a small volley across the bow of the conventional 'market' system. I won't go so far as to say that Radiohead is adhering to ecological economics principles (e.g. full cost pricing), but this theme of 'what its worth?' could challenge the system. How we value music which we basically get for free is a very small example of how we value ecosystem services, fresh air, biodiversity, etc.
Of course, we very quickly run into Garret Hardins Tragedy of the Commons.