Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/10/27

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Payment for photos
From: Martin Howard <howard.390@osu.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 13:40:20 -0400

Marc James Small jotted down the following:

> Not at all.  A competitive market fills the market need.  When the
> consumers wish a lot of trash, that is what the market supplies.  When the
> consumers demand quality, then they get quality.

I don't believe in this.  It's not a case of demanding, it's a case of
accepting.  I'm sure that today's consumers want (a less strong version of
demand) quality, but they settle for less, because quality is hard to find.
Why?  Because of what the producers produce.  If you saturate the market
with easily produced, low-quality trash, then that's what people will buy,
because that's what they will find, and that's what they will believe is
their choice.

A competitive market doesn't necessarily fill the market need.  What it is
guaranteed to do, however, is find the lowest common denominator.

> Have you watched the tellie in the last twenty-five years?

I don't own a television.  When I did, I was pretty selective about what I'd
view, but I've discovered that TV is like nicotin: your body likes it, but
it doesn't need it, and you can get along better without it.

M.

- -- 
Martin Howard                     | "Any sufficiently advanced technology
Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU       |  is indistiguishable from magic."
email: howard.390@osu.edu         |               -- Arthur C. Clarke
www: http://mvhoward.i.am/        +---------------------------------------