[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> a nyt article on freenet and gnutella

[Paul Kelly <pjkelly@netcom.ca>]

At 12:45 PM -0400 5/11/00, Felix Stalder wrote:
>Just imagine what
>something like nastier could if coupled with a micropayment system.

What could napster do if it had a micropayment system? Please 
elaborate. And then there's the problem how do we guarantee 
transactions and ensure the guy on the other side is who he says he 
is (This is very important with some of these big-money exchanges).

>
>Taking the idea of Napster a step further, what's to prevent someone from
>creating the Napster of consumer auctions. If the Napster approach hit
>auctions, how could the existing auction players such as eBay, Amazon.com
>or Yahoo! hope to compete? For that matter, what's to prevent someone from
>creating Napster-like programs that take on the numerous players currently
>creating business-to-business exchanges?

OK all you "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" types (you know 
who you are), what do you think of this? Something way new and 
network-centric? Something that's not just an amplification of 
existing institutions? Could it be that the Internet really has 
something new under the sun to offer?


>The death of network effects?
>

Why can't a network effect be created by the software client that 
facilitates the exchanges? At some point the cost of switching to a 
competitor client might be perceived as too high. And you can spend a 
few million marketing these things too, y'know.

Paul
-- 
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                     Paul Kelly: pkelly@calumet.yorku.ca
                http://www-home.calumet.yorku.ca/pkelly/www/
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