Nat Emodi on Farcaster

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Digital art is at the beginning of a seismic shift in value perception A story about a paradigm shift from an earlier era 👇

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2/ With software having eaten the world (h/t @pmarca), it's hard to believe how radical 21-year old Bill Gates was in 1976 when he wrote an open letter (in effect, a manifesto) declaring that software developers shouldn’t be ripped off for their work.

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3/ If developers started being paid fairly, Gates argued, it would lead to a groundswell of software creation that would benefit everyone, from developers to hardware makers to the same hobbyists he called out as thieves.

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4/ It’s amazing to read this now — Gates as the underdog champion for a downtrodden creative class — but he threw himself and other developers in with creatives whose work had obvious value:

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5/ “Now I ask you — does a musician have the right to collect the royalty on the sale of his records or does a writer have the right to collect the royalty on the sale of his books? Are people who copy software any different than those who copy records and books?”

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6/ He went on to declare that such rampant piracy was stopping developers like him from investing the effort needed to build quality software. He pointed out the blatant unfairness of getting access to his work—the output of his time, effort, & investment—without getting paid.

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7/ The parallels here with digital artists today are striking. Replace ‘musician’ or ‘writer’ with ‘artist’ and you’re speaking to the movement underway with those of us who believe in ownership of digital art and culture

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8/ While today this feels quaint, at the time it was visionary. In 1976, software creation was mostly controlled by manufacturers who buried its cost in hardware pricing. A profit incentive would compel developers to innovate alongside step-changes in hardware, aka Moore's Law.

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9/ So, Gates' letter helped shift the paradigm around the value of software developers' work. Before it, software was seen as a cheap output relative to tangible products like semiconductors & microcomputers.

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10/ This helped developers get fairly paid. This led to much better software, which in turn gave rise to the personal computer revolution. 35 years later, software has eaten the world, which wouldn't have been possible without this shift in value perception.

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11/ Gates was right. Accepting the fact that software was worth paying for led to the emergence of a dynamic new economy. Besides all his many accomplishments, the paradigm shift spurred by his manifesto may be his greatest contribution to the world.

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12/ If you’re curious, Gates' full “Open Letter to Hobbyists” is here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Bill_Gates_Letter_to_Hobbyists_ocr.pdf

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13/ Onwards to digital ownership of art and culture. /end

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PS: one of the things I still enjoy about X relative to FC are deeper threads. I'm experimenting to see how these land here. If you enjoyed this, let me know and I'll write more.

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Danica Swanson pfp

Love it. I'm old enough to remember something of the zeitgeist back in the day (I also worked at MS in the 1990s), and I think this thread is right on target. I've waited all my life for a sea change in valuing art and writing, and finally it's under way (albeit still very early). More of this kind of writing, please!

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celadoor pfp

Seems like a good idea for a frame. Basically a blog frame. Which totally failed to some degree within the original slack UI but perhaps makes more sense in a public facing app. Would love to see an fx(text) integration - for example - for @wtbs to use (someday).

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Gabriel 🎩 pfp

WP‘s edge, for me, is that there are smarter people here than on ct (apart from frames ofc) Therefore it‘d make sense to be able to read their thoughts in long form

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@chriscocreated

Yes, all of favour of more deep content like this. Thank you.

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Garance pfp

I love it ! Very interesting parallel

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LoneWick pfp

Love this. Would love to see more.

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Anemale🎩↑🔵ツ pfp

Anemale🎩↑🔵ツ

Yesssss really great, I like the threads also it allows you to go in depth on interesting subjects like this one.

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