[ILUG] Re: Monopoly

[Aidan Kehoe]

 Ar an 17u la de mi 10, scriobh John McCormac :

 > Gerard J Keating wrote:
 > > 
 > > Ferren MacIntyre wrote:
 > > > There is no reason why a computer program should cost more than a book.
 > > 
 > > OK then, assuming a book costs about IEP20.00, will you write me a small
 > > database system for 20 quid, please thanks..
 > 
 > Economies of scale: A book is a mass produced item. A database system is
 > often a one off item. If a book was produced to be a one off or produced
 > in very small numbers, then it would be very expensive. (It was that way
 > before scriptoria and eventually moveable type printing.) There also has
 > to be a demand for the product. 

/me just paid 54 Euros (Meh, gotta get around to setting up
iso-8859-15 for the Euro sign) for the Design & Implementation of
4.4BSD, and I certainly wish there was a bigger market for it so
prices would fall :-) . 

(Of course, there's a massive market for The C Programming Language,
but *it* still costs ~40 quid. Hmm.)

 > As for the claim that a computer program should not cost more than a
 > book - rubbish! In financial terms, any item is worth only what someone
 > will pay for it. People will cooperate when it is in their best
 > interests to do so but sooner or later, Human nature will prevail and
 > the co-op system will tend towards capitalism. Rarely do the people who
 > are struggling to survive entertain fantasies about co-ops and such.
 > Co-ops only seem to occur when there is a sufficient amount of revenue
 > generated by capitalism. 

-- 
`... when the elephant man broke strong men's necks, when he'd had too 
many Powers, ...'