<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Jul 3, 2005, at 6:48 AM, Damien Broderick wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">At 07:46 AM 7/3/2005 -0400, Robin wrote:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> <BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Everything depends on the quality of the "measurements describing</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">qualities of the information."<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Or rather, what we really want are</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">indicators of the *value* of the information to the people who use it.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Whatever the problems with the current system, it does ensure that</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">info which users perceive to have a high value is produced and used.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">An alternative could be worse if it failed often enough to induce</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the production and use of this class of info.</DIV> <BR></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">This discussion has skidded weirdly away from my original suggestion, which was precisely to make available to potential users an experience (reading the text) that they could evaluate *after use*and then pay for, if they felt that its value was sufficient.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>I segued to something else in the solution space after responding to the original. Instead of discussions of when and if you pay for a particular bit of information I sought to go to the root of the problem of having the creators compensated while maximizing the use of information and the rate of innovation. My proposed solution, incomplete as it is, removes the question of when and if one pays.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">- samantha</FONT></DIV><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></BODY></HTML>