TidBITS: Mac news for the rest of us. Shirky: "What will replace newspapers?" is a plea to n. Clay Shirky explains how all the "visionary planning" in the newspaper business in the 90s amounted to variations on this theme: "Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!
" This fallacy drives every conversation about selling digital units of content as though they were physical units of atoms, using DRM to stop copying or divide the uses of content into millions of infinitely fungible "licenses" ("You've bought the right to listen to this song on this player, on Wednesday, only if you've got curly hair and you stand on one leg at the same time"), and suing/"educating" your customers about why they should pay you for stuff that you're not offering in their preferred format.
As these ideas were articulated, there was intense debate about the merits of various scenarios. Would DRM or walled gardens work better? Shouldn’t we try a carrot and stick approach with education and prosecution? And so on. Multitouch Gestures in Firefox 3.5. Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide.