PayExpected

The idea is to request pay, and then use shame to enforce the request.

PayExpectedImage

Explanation

We don’t need to resort to the force of law; We can rely on common decency.

In some ways, this is already what we do with commercial software! That is, plenty of people pirate software, and I’ve met someone who was taken away for piracy. So pretty much everyone I know (with the exception of companies that are too big to do otherwise) who’s paying for software, is paying for software voluntarily.

We should consider this a “SoftEconomy” idea, because it relies on “common decency,” rather than force and guns.

Put another way, we are saying that there is a “cost” of interacting with a particular society. And part of that “cost” is abiding by it’s rules and paying it’s dues. If you do not pay your dues, you do not get support, people who’s help you need give you the cold shoulder, and so on.

The very wealthy (as I have come to understand) have a common practice of setting a dollar value to their time. To simply communicate with these people, you need to pay them.

It can be similar with the HiveMind or the OrganizedCulture: To communicate with a group, you need to renumerate it somehow, or promise to keep it’s promises.

Imagined Growth Curve

We can imagine the following timeline:

This is something that we can imagine, and something that we can help to create.

I see no holes in the theory, and it just makes sense, in many ways.

We can, ourselves, start this now.

Alex, (to name a person with a project,) could say: “If you use OddMuse for more than, say, 6 months, I expect $20 a year from you, or $50 for 3 years. Payment is expected, but not absolutely required. This software is Free (as in Freedom) software.” Alex tracks use of Oddmuse. He then proceeds to e-mail people, call people, or (perhaps ultimately:) request payment on their wiki. For those who can’t pay, (perhaps they are students,) or for whom who’s cause he thinks is absolutely stellar, he lets them pay less or nothing. For those who refuse to pay, and he doesn’t accept their reason, he simply writes on his page: “These are people who are not paying. Please reject interaction with these people, or request that they pay.”

This is all it takes to start something.

If you want to start an alternative currency on top of this, it is very simple: You just deign yourself an “issuing authority.” You talk with Alex, and you see if he’ll accept your currency. He says “Yes,” because he believes in the cause.

Then you say something like: “We’ll give you $X geek dollars, for every month that you apply and we certify that you are making useful contributions to Wikipedia,” or whatever. Alex puts on his page: “You can pay in US dollars, or you can pay in geek dollars. You can get geek dollars by talking with this certifying authority.”

And so on, and so forth.

See Also

[[tag:economy]] [[tag:freesoftware]] [[tag:payment]] [[tag:pay]] [[tag:receive]] [[tag:give]] [[tag:freedom]] [[tag:money]] AlternativeMonetarySystems CategoryEconomics?

Problems With The Gift Economy

The problem is that many of the users of you expect to pay for your software will be themselves contributors to causes you might support. Assuming, for a moment, that the Free Software community works like an ecosystem, where most authors of Free Software are also users of Free Software, and that there are not too many freeloaders (in terms of software):

Thus, they would argue, they should be exempt from payment, since they, too, contribute to the FreeSoftware ecosystem. The payment introduces a net value loss as money is exchanged back and forth, always at a cost – assuming that the banks and micropayment services are not contributing to the Free Software ecosystem.

One would have to argue that the PayExpected benefit is choice and power: If you offer product X for free, they should give you some money, so that you get to decide how to spend it. Thus, instead of resources being allocated by the individual recipients of Free Software, the mechanism on this page allows resources to be allocated by the individual authors of Free Software.

If you like this change in the power structure, then of course the system is very interesting.

It’s not clear that this is a significant benefit for society as a whole, specially given the slow drain of money from the ecosystem due to fees by banks and micropayment services. Management of reputation systems, identity fraud and similar problems with such systems, and so on, would similarly suck value out of the system, of course.

One would have to gather experience with such a system, first.

The entire system would only work if there are a lot of users of Free Software that don't author any of it, and don’t produce any other similarly useful gifts for authors of Free Software.

If the remaining users of Free Software produced similar gifts useful to society, eg. NGOs working for civil society or the government, then the picture is muddled again.

But, Alex, the vast majority of people are not Free Software developers.

Or consider Audacity, if you are too surrounded by too many Free Software developers.

The thing is that you get money from people who are “not contributing” to the Free Software cause. And there are tons of these people. Most programmers, I would gamble, are not believers in Free Software. They do not contribute in a way that you personally do not want to renumerate.

I think you’re being way too quick to apply a ColdBlanket, here..!

Ask for some money, damnit!

It doesn’t have to be a micropayment. In fact, I never wrote the word micropayment above. Just ask for a big fat $50 check, or something. Make it stretch to 3 years, if you think the overhead is too high.

I don’t know; I personally don’t think the overhead is too high: Just make the phone call, send the email, and demand your money!

If you think their excuse is lousy, say: I think that’s a lousy excuse, and document it, as such, on your website, or whatever.

Characterizing it as a GiftEconomy, I think, is the wrong thing: Maybe a “PoliteEconomy?,” rather than a “gift economy.” I like “SoftEconomy.”

See, my interest in FreeSoftware is:

My interest is not:

If I can make software that is Free as in Freedom, that is also based on public trust rather than force of law, but huck the GiftEconomy: that’s fine by me..!

If someone is starting something, and they need to use software without paying, and they’re going to be shunned: that’s okay. I actually believe in that game. It’s different than law and force being used against you.

You can just say: “Here’s what I’m doing, and here’s why I’m doing it. And if that’s a problem for you, well, okay. I accept that.”

But most of my users seem to be Free Software authors: Even if the description says “personal homepage”, I know that these guys have either contributed to an IRC client manual, or to an image editor, etc. Sure, it’s not 90% but it’s bigger than 50%. Should we go out and measure it? We could try and do that, if we really want to pick Oddmuse as an example.

But even if only 30% of them are Free Software sites: I’ve thought long and hard about earning money with Oddmuse, Lion. And I decided that I didn’t want to do it. I felt that asking for money from other activists and authors was a slight – something I don’t want to do. Do I share the money with Clifford Adams, the author of UseModWiki? Do I share with PeterMerel, MarkusDenker, and WardCunningham, since they’re listed in the source code, and what about all the other people who supplied patches? Being fair in this situation is a nightmare.

I also declined an offer by the Google guys who were interested in putting ads on emacswiki.org, because it would have meant earning money with other people’s effort. [1] It’s all about gifts. Trying to value them all just spoils it for us all. What I’m saying is that you’re taking an existing GiftEconomy and trying to introduce PayExpected into it. And I think it won’t work, because I’ve thought about it myself: I’m not donating to anybody who writes Free Software!

You’re saying the vast majority of people are not Free Software developers. That’s true, but neither are they Free Software users!

What I could do is charge money for services. But since nobody seems to be willing to pay my hourly rates (CHF 200/h or USD 180/h), I guess I will keep doing what I have always done: Rejecting the stuff I don’t like and do the stuff I enjoy doing.

I mean to say: charge money from people who are not contributing to Free Software efforts.

You go:

  • “You are free to use this software, under the terms of the license. You are also expected to pay for it, should you find it to be useful, yadda yadda yadda. If you work on a Free Software project, you are exempt from this expectation.”
  • You don’t charge WardCunningham. (Alex asks: Shouldn’t that be: “You don’t pay Ward?” Lion responds: You do pay Ward! Unless he says: No payment expected. The thing is, everything is soft. Everything is blended. All concerns are put in the mix: It’s not, “money over here, propriety over there.”)
  • You don’t charge causes you are excited about.
  • I don’t see how it’s a slight to expect pay (up-front, not afterwards!) for someone who wants to set up an OddMuse wiki on, say, Final Fantasy XIII, or something like that.
  • You can charge activists of causes that you don’t know about, or don’t care for. I don’t see how that’s a slight, either. They can apply (send an email) for exemption, and you can say, “no.”
  • You do charge people who supply patches, but the payment is in the patch. They don’t have to pay money, AlternativeCurrency or conventional state currency. They paid their way when they contributed the patch.

Other notes:

  • Kudos on declining the Google ads. I agree with your reasoning, as well. I’m not saying, “make money, at all costs.”

I’m actually not seeking to convince you; I’m more interested in exploring the space. I don’t think I’ve swayed you, and I don’t think I will sway you. You just happen to be a useful “plausible scenario” piece, since you administer well respected valuable software.

I have another idea, that I’ll post soon, about how to fairly value the contributions of several people who are incidental collaborators, or whatever.

My aim, which I believe is achievable, realistic, and timely, is to grow the FreeSoftware movement, to make it more mainstream, to bridge the space between personal/community, and professional. I think people can and should be paid for writing FreeSoftware, and other online contributions. And I think people are willing to pay for the software they use, even if they are not forced to. I think an influx of money will make much more FreeSoftware development possible. I think it would be a fairer economy, that would automatically take into account soft things like special needs. A values based economy. It would grow out over to time to extend to just about all economy.

Alex, it’s clear to me that you have a sense of propriety, of what is proper, of maintaining a balance.

If you reject the idea, is it because you believe it would be unfair?

The goal here is to make things more fair. And to bring these discussions out into the open, and so on.

We could never make a more equitable world, without these discussions. I suspect that’s a fundamental constraint: To make a more quitable world, we will have to get into situations where we talk about what is proper, and so on. There is a cost to those discussions; That needs to be recognized. “Justice is an expense.” But I think people in general like to pay that expense, if they believe in the system.

I’m interested in figuring this out, too. You obviously don’t share my initial emotional reaction: A cold shudder, a hint of disgust. I’m not sure why I feel that way. Complication of my interactions with the rest of the world? Monetization of human relationships?

Anyway. I’ll think some more about this.

Perhaps it has to do with my disgust with our copyright and patents system, and its latest DRM misery. The PayExpected seems like a soft DRM with nagging and shaming built in. But! But! My internal voice screams: Shaming is medieval punishment! What about human dignity!? What kind of world will this be? Do I want it? I don’t think so. The entire attraction of the Free Software movement goes – for me – beyond the four freedoms. It’s free as in “you have your rights” but it is also free as free beer: No strings attached. We love to share! I love to share! I don’t want to be an anal-regressive control-freak out naming and shaming the freeloaders and pirates and social dropouts.

Anyway. You see I have a highly emotional reaction, influenced by current events, global politicts, intellectual property, etc.

It’s far from simple for me. So: I need more time.

Well said.

I feel it.

I think you should take a look at the manner in which the musician Jane Siberry is selling her music online.

Link: http://www.sheeba.ca/store/

It’s very similar--even though it’s for music--to the model which Lion is describing. She’s basically using the power of social reinforcement to encourage people to pay for her music.

Stephen Dubner sums it up better than I could here: http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2006/05/03/how-is-a-canadian-art-pop-singer-like-a-bagel-salesman/

I hope this helps!

Thanks! I’ve incorporated the links into the “See Also’s.” Excellent examples! They don’t use shame, though.

I wonder if shame is really necessary…? I haven’t really formulated my thoughts on it yet, but I have a sort of visceral revulsion to using overt shaming techniques as a tactic for motivating people to “do the right thing”. This seems like a bit of superfreudianism at work, no? When I’ve thought about it some more, I’ll write something more about it.

SuperFreudianism is the belief that things are, in essence, actually hideously horrible.

That is not my belief, and I do not see how it derives from the advocacy of shaming those who won’t pay for their software.

Are covert shaming tactics to be preferred?

The vast majority of manners are enforced through shame. I’d rather name it and have it out in the open, than have it be covert. I believe it has less power over us, if we name it clearly.


Looks interesting, at least. I don’t know if this could work before we have GeekMoney?; it might, but it seems a bit like a chicken-and-egg problem. Without GeekMoney? (alternative currencies; cold, hard, reputation ?), expecting people to pay and shaming those who don’t seems unfair. Without PayExpected, there’s not much use for geek money (there still is though, so I expect to see alternative currencies before payExpected).

That may partly explain the negative reaction to “shaming”. When we have geek money / alternative currencies / nifty stuff to pay with, and it becomes easy to pay, it makes more sense to shame those who still try to be freeloaders.

So, maybe we shouldn’t push for PayExpected or Geekmoney, but try to build mini-systems where we have a bit of both. And hope they grow.

A bad scenario: Somebody may give something away for free now, and change his mind later on, and start bullying/shaming those who don’t want to pay him. Now, this sucks, because it’d make people truss free software less and less. I may prefer “Open-Source Glorb” to “Free Proprietary Glurb”, but I may still prefer “Free Proprietary Glorb” to “Open-Source with Public Shaming on the Marketplace if You Don’t Pay Glorb”. And if I can’t trust that the open source version won’t spontaneously mutate into the public shaming one, I may just chose the proprietary version.

One solution would be a special “PayExpected License” - that’s not legally different from a standard free software license, but that includes a warning that you may be badgered / listed somewhere if you don’t pay. The main point being that we can keep on trusting those versions that don’t include that warning to leave us alone.

I say this about software, but it applies to the rest. I certainly wouldn’t like it if, say, flickr put my name on a list of “frick’n freeloaders” :P

I don’t understand what is unfair about it.

It should say, right there on the download page: “You are expected to pay for this. If you don’t, we’ll put your name on this list.”

Where I could see a problem, is the following:

  • Person X writes the software, and releases it PayExpected.
  • Person A copies the software, doesn’t pay.
  • Person A removes tracking code, and any notices about expectations of pay.
  • Person A puts the code up on a server somewhere, and advertises it to people: “Download this program; it’s awesome!”
  • Person B downloads the code from Person A’s site, oblivious to the situation.
  • Person X endorses shaming Person B, and other downloaders from A’s site.

In the case of traditionally copyrighted and licensed software, the solution is obvious: Person X gets Person A’s government to make Person A stop.

It’s a tougher situation here, though. We sincerely need to protect person B. Exposing the general public to shame, without warning, is not acceptable; It is very unethical.

This may justify a special PayExpected license, that is basically an OpenSource license, but requires some special notices. But this is a technicality, and can probably be resolved with some cleverness.

I really don’t understand why this system is viewed as unfair:

  • You make use of the software?
  • You pay for it.

Honestly, how is this different than just normal day-to-day buying of software?

The points where it is different work in your favor. That is, you have more options, not fewer: You have the option of bearing shame, and issuing your own justification. And you have the ability to read and modify the source code, to fit your needs. (And so on.)

All the perceptions of “unfairness” are on the basis of violating one trust or another.

For example, you wrote: “What if flickr put me on a list? I wouldn’t like that.” And right you wouldn’t. Because that wasn’t part of your initial agreement with them, was it!

It would be very unfair to say: “You can use this as much as you want, for free.” And then 6 months later, suddenly say: “Oh! You haven’t been paying us! Shame, shame!Of course that would be unfair, of course that would be wrong.

But the fault isn’t in the idea of PayExpected. The fault is in spontaneously expecting pay, when it wasn’t originally part of the deal.

It’s little different than if we had a trade, and then I jacked up the rate $100 after the trade, and attacked you in court over it. It’s not the concept of trade that is wrong; It’s the concept of spontaneously re-interpreting the agreement that’s the problem. (There are situations where spontaneously re-interpreting agreements is right, but that’s not the discussion right now.)

Actually, let’s ask ourselves now: What would happen if Flickr all of the sudden put up a list, like we were talking about? The blogosphere would be outraged. They would fill their blogs with: Look at how horrible this is!

What’s that word I’m hearing? What do I hear the bloggers crying? “Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” Shame on flickr! Why shame on flickr? Because if they did this, they would be violating basic sense of rightness. Why? Because they broke their agreement.

Except CommunityWiki. CommunityWiki would not shame Flickr, no matter what they did, because CommunityWiki does not believe in shame. (Yes? ;) )

Everybody shames. Whether they believe it or not, everybody shames. We cast judgements and have opinions. If we are squeamish about this, it does not change the reality. You shame.

This is not SuperFreudianism. I am not saying here: “At the core of humanity, is this grotesquely horrible thing.” Not at all. I’m just talking about how manners work. It works by disapproval, which is a lighter version of shaming. But it is still shaming.

“Shame” is not the chief defining feature of human life, and “shame” is not the core of human existance. I do not have problems sleeping at night, because I know that there is a law that is not the written law, and that that law is enforced through shame. It’s just the same as: I don’t have problems sleeping at night, because I know that there is a law that is written, and that law is enforced through guns, police, and jails.

Guns, police, jails, permission systems, borders, shame, and disapproval are not the defining features of human life; They are just something that are there. They are not the essence of humanity, which would be the claims of SuperFreudianism. (“The horror! The horror!) They are just a part of life. Like selectively ClosedMinded is a necessary thing for the PassagesOfPerspective to function, so that we can be SelectivelyOpenMinded about other things. (ie we could never have been OpenMinded about the existance of quarks, were we not first ClosedMinded about the existance of atoms and molecules.) “I used to have an open mind, but my brains kept falling out!” …and all.

To which the analogy would be: “I used to have a totally open society, but it kept falling apart!” Yep; Sounds about right.

(Perhaps we need a page: ApplyingShame?.)

So, yes: It would be a negative scenario to see “free” suddenly become: “pay or shame!”

If you had earlier versions of the software, and they were free, it would likely be best to not retroactively suddenly make those PayExpected, because people made an investment into those, an investment made on certain assumptions.

You may instead say: “We’re shifting our focus on a new version. This version is Free software, PayExpected. We would not shame people working on the old version. But with this new thing, if you make use of it, we expect payment.”

If you think it’s a bad deal, simply don’t use the new software! If you don’t want to pay for it, don’t use it!

If you want to try it out, just download it, and see if it’s useful to you. If you use it for a while, and think it’s useful, pay for it! If you don’t, don’t use it.

I sincerely do not see what is unfair about this.

This gives you more freedom. If someone has very unreasonable expectations, the community has a bargaining point. The community can say: “We think this price is outrageous. We will pay you 1/2 of what you ask. You can put our names on a list, but we don’t care: We think we’re doing what’s fair. And, btw, we think it’s a little rediculous of you to ask so much.”

Yes? See? The community has far more control over the economy.

It can work the other way, too: It can reward in excess of what is requested, if they believe it is right. It can become a point of honor to, say, systematically pay double. You are basically, in effect, doing community service. And you’ll be honored and given preferential treatment for it.

We do this already: We give preferential treatment to WardCunningham, for his honor, for his positive demeaner, for his enormously useful contributions, and so on.

We’re just talking two sides of the same coin.

This should not be controversial.

Think about all the corporate abuses you can think of. Now imagine if the companies’ payment for their products and services were based on what people think is right, rather than what the company requires, and will call the cops on you for exceeding.

See?

I was talking about the problem of retroactively applying PayExpected to something that was previously released without such terms. The possibility exists because PayExpected is “soft” - not bound by code or law. If you released something under the GPL, you can’t change your mind later on, and tell for people to stop distributing it. All you can do is release tbe following versions under something else.

But nothing prevents you from doing that with PayExpected; so while it’s not “technically” a distinct license, it’s better to treat it as one, to make it clear that retroactivity is not OK. Releasing later versions under PayExpected is ok.

So no, I don’t think that pay expected is unfair, or that shaming is bad. But I do think it should b done carefully to avoid all impression that it could be applied retroactively (I mean, I can imagine the Microsoft PR department jumping on this: “Yes, you are not forced to pay for the so-called “free” software, but how do you think the people who develop it get their money? By tracking down users and asking them to cough up or have their name, photo and address published on www.childmolestors.org, that’s how.”)

Why not just acknowledge Contributors, without bothering to try to shame the others?

I have seen many good examples of people’s contributions being recongized to Buildings, the Arts, etc. And I’ve even seen groups that cater to such contributions by weighting the wishes of the contributors more highly than the wishes of others.

Well, that would basically be how things work now. With pay expected, you want paying to be the rule, not the exception. It’s a step further out than many would want to go, but it may still work.


Lion, wow, great to learn about your alternative options for integrating the (wiki-) community work into the wider sphere of economics. In the meantime we could perhaps do something simpler: SelfMerchantisingObjectWithaGroupLicenseKey?. Let’s say a creative group of scientists, musiceans, graphic designers have produced a selfinstalling flash screensaver for science songs (with karaoke subtitling ;-). This screensaver is freely distributed in DemoMode?. Clicking on a PayButton? inititates an IPN-dialog with a MicropaymentProvider?, say Paypal and expands the object to FullMode?. A group account on the PaymentGatewayProvider? automatically routes the (earlier negotiated) percentages to each individual account of the PeerAuthor?s.

Now to the DerivativeCollaborationEnableButton?: For some bucks more, clicking this button, the user gets the source and the rights to do derivative work. S/he gets flash source, the source for the music part (e.g. HarmonyAssistent? *.mus source or BandInaBox?, … to build upon it). A default derivative license key can (optionally) be modified by negotiating with the precursor authors. The derivative authors pay their percentage to the precursor authors and get paid alike by their successors, if there are some.

FridemarPache

Lion, you know the more I look at this, the more I think it is in line with perhaps a variation of our BarCampBank funding ideas. Only here, I think it could be possible to have OpenSource software creators farm out the responsibility of of gathering money to some type of transparent fund management such as we are proposing with BarCampBank. My idea is that you could give a person a choice of having their payment applied as a “payment” towards Alex, or an “investment” in projects that Alex is working on. This “investment” money could then be used by Alex and others working on OddMuse projects to pay themselves to fund the development of OddMuse for both for-profit and open source uses, with a certain small percentage coming back to the equity pool. If they just make a “payment” then Alex, and whoever else he plugs in as a “payee” receives cash. Just an idea, anyway.


Define external redirect: BandInaBox DerivativeCollaborationEnableButton HarmonyAssistent PeerAuthor BenCrowell PoliteEconomy PayButton ApplyingShame GeekMoney DemoMode SelfMerchantisingObjectWithaGroupLicenseKey MicropaymentProvider PaymentGatewayProvider CategoryEconomics FullMode

EditNearLinks: ColdBlanket OpenSource PeterMerel GiftEconomy BarCampBank UseModWiki WardCunningham FreeSoftware

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