I don’t know how many times the ridiculous argument that “charging for content won’t work” can be thrown out and still get traction. Let’s look at the history of “free” versus “pay” and see where it takes us.

Despite being a Boxee user and fan of the service, (I have been a user of both the Alpha and Beta clients for over a year) I have to call out Ronen for trying to be too clever by half. The fact is, Zucker has the more honest argument on this point. Boxee doesn’t, in fact, act just like a browser.

Telecom and tech bloggers were abuzz yesterday as Obama’s response to a question about net neutrality made it’s way through the ether. (video is embedded after the jump) The question, asked as part of the YouTube interview with the President, may have generated more controversy than intended.

Update 2/3/2010 – Some have contacted me that the following post is over simplistic, and they raise some very good points.  It isn’t the RIAA that is seeking the million dollar fines; they’re usually asking for ~$3500 settlement fees; it is the juries that are issuing these multi-million dollar fines if the case goes to court.  Someone else criticized my blog posting that:
“This is way way way oversimplistic.  The penalties were, of course, originally set in a world where a copyright violation might be a movie, or a record, or a …

Micro-payments are frequently raised as a potential funding mechanism for digital content. There are a number of important issues that any experimentation will have to address.

Free Press’ opposition to TV Everywhere is at odds with reality.

We are moving from an Ownership Society to an Access Society. I think that trend continues for awhile. In a digital economy, with an abundance of content, access may trump ownership.

Content creators want to protect the model that gives them the most certainty. To argue that they would simply make their content available through a model that didn’t do that is simply laughable. Trying to force them to do so by foolishly invoking the heavy hand of government in business negotiations.

Oliver Chiang serves up a bunch of good metrics on the digital decade that was. Here are a few:
– Number of e-mails sent per day in 2000: 12 billion
– Number of e-mails sent per day in 2009: 247 billion
– Revenues from mobile data services in the first half of 2000: $105 million
– Revenues from mobile data services in the first half of 2009: $19.5 billion
– Number of text messages sent in the U.S. per day in June 2000: 400,000
– Number of text messages sent in the U.S. per day in June …