[clug] Richard Stallmans presentation
Richard
richard_c at tpg.com.au
Mon Jan 9 10:36:34 GMT 2006
Michael Still wrote:
> I've been thinking about Google Video [1] the last couple of days, and
> I've come to the conclusion that services _such_as_ Google video that
> take the hassle out of hosting extremely large files have the power to
> change the world.
<cynicism>
For all of Google's "do no evil" promises, they're still a for-profit
enterprise, and until a not-for-profit enterprise attempts this sort of
thing, then it can essentially be defined as a niche/flash-in-the-pan.
Google (or another for-profit provider) has to make back its costs from
somewhere, and advertising (still the money spinner for non-retail web
sites) is low margin (and I don't see too many other ways to make money
from such a service). If the profit from advertising covered the cost of
providing the download, then the service would not be lowering the
barriers to entry very far; ergo there would be little benefit in
getting Google to do the hosting (beyond using the
by-then-commoditised-and-cheap-and-common-as-dirt streaming services
from your ISP). Basically, it doesn't make commercial sense to give away
something that costs money - if the dotcom flameouts taught us anything,
then that had to be it.
The only reason Google can afford this sort of experiment is that it's
still riding a dotcom valuation.
</cynicism>
For now, this is kinda cool, but I'm not sure this is going to be
genuinely revolutionary in any sense. "More" is required from the
service providers in the longer term.
Richard
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