Posts by BenWilson
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There was a comment from someone a few posts up which indicated that they did. And the Greens apparently do, too. Although Rod Donald didn't
I took your word for this, until I failed to find said comment.
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You can see how it would.
I can see how it could, at least. It just seems weird that I've never heard anyone say they made the decision based on advertising. Even people who aren't into politics seem to have better sources of information than that. Discussions of the merits of the various advertising campaigns seem to center around the affect they will have on other people .
I'd guess that the angle taken by major media would be a way bigger factor.
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Does anyone disagree about an equal spending cap for all parties? Apart from the 2 main beneficiaries?
It does seem important that there should be a level playing field, but seriously I'm amazed that advertising has any effect at all on the vote outcomes. What kind of supermarket products you buy, sure, but what kind of government you'd like to have?
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whether it's 2000% markup or 10,000% it's still a rip.
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You also didn't factor in Telecom's success at lobbying limp-wristed Ministers who might have regulated their cosy monopoly/duopoly a decade earlier. Mobile termination rates, anyone?
I didn't, but TXT is a global phenomenon. I think the main driver of its success was that it was economically fruitful for business, and it was a service that wasn't already supplied, and yet was useful. It didn't matter that it was a pretty tiny invention technology wise.
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I just think its inevitable radio in its commercial form and public form will eventually die as broadband becomes cheaper and home based jocks put out their own programmes, work habits change and advertisers stop supporting radio as they can no longer reach their captive target market.
Perhaps inevitable, but the timeframe is unknown. I used to think there wouldn't be people digging ditches with spades in 30 years, when I was 8. But there they are, just out there on the street in front of me. I also thought text messaging would be a huge flop because it was already an extortionate ripoff bandwidth-wise back when it first started. That was because as a computer-nerd, I thought something that could have just as effectively been delivered with a 300 baud modem, when the POTS was already at a minimum of 9600 baud and cellphones matched this, was surely not the way of the future. Surely bandwidth was only increasing - and of course it was, and has - and surely market forces would drive something a lot better into the mix, or at least take txts down to a 'fair' cost. But no, I didn't factor in that the profits from this extortionate service would make it extremely attractive to the very small pool of massive scale providers, and thus the service would become a standard and everyone would have it, and even be thankful for it. In short, I didn't factor in that people appreciated that it was better than what they had before, rather than feeling bitter that it was only 1% as good as what it could have been.
Society changes quite slowly wrt to some things. Video calling was a futuristic idea when I was a child. Now we have it, even over cellphones, but it doesn't seem to be taking over at breakneck speed. I do it regularly with family and friends who are abroad. But I don't want to do it with colleagues very much. I still prefer voice. We've been trained by telephones to find this a perfectly acceptable way of communicating, which even has advantages over a 'speaking AND seeing' medium.
I don't even have a clue what changes will happen to overall work habits. Certainly a lot more people can telecommute, or operate a home business nowadays. But a lot more people don't want to do either one, and at times I can see their point. Going into a workplace has some very nice advantages - you can get pretty lonely and peculiar when you work from home. Sometimes I literally see nobody but my family for days in a row. I miss other people.
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But then again I'm not a slave to any rigid work timetable whereby its convenient to tune in while negotitating the morning and afternoon traffic jam as part of some daily ritual.
Robbie, I think this is probably the main rebuttal to most of your points.
I like your style, I do pretty much what you do with music (except for making it, which I only really dream about), seem to have much the same musical tastes, and I've enjoyed your comments, it's good to hear there are people like me out there.
But, and I'm totally guilty of this, it's very easy to overgeneralize from your own choices to everyone else and the future, and just as easy to be dead wrong. A great many people are stuck in rigid work timetables, perhaps even the majority, and tuning into the radio is a lifetime habit that they could hardly imagine being without. Then there's kids who are stuck in rigid school timetables. Then there's people who just like to hear the new stuff as it comes. Then there's people who just don't want to have to pick what to listen to (beyond maybe channel flipping), when a perfectly qualified DJ can do it for them and keep them entertained endlessly. Then there's people who just like background noise, and radio is at least informative and ever changing (if slowly). People who are working at some chore are like this, hell I used to do it when I pumped gas. I tried playing my own music but I got sick of arguments with co-workers who didn't want to hear my choices, and often customers. I was equally sick of people who did like them too, customers who would like what I was playing and want to talk about it, when I had work to do. They were worse because they often took offense, thinking they were only being friendly. Then there's those curious people who like talkback.
So in the end I can dig that people like the radio. I don't much. When I'm working with my brain, I like silence. When I'm driving, I've got my library. If I want music in the lounge, I'll usually put the television music channels on, or something the kids like on CD. I seldom get to put my own stuff on, as my wife has different tastes, so we settle for something we both like, a much more limited pool. I don't listen to an iPod or anything like it, because the opportunity just doesn't really come up - I don't commute, and I think they're pretty antisocial - I'd rather be sharing what I'm listening to.
But all these peculiarities flow from my lifestyle and choices, which are actually quite different from the average, and I really have no clue whether society is tending more towards my lifestyle or away from it. I work alone, so I can get away with being peculiar. When I worked with other people, lots of them liked having music on, and I'd have to endure it. After a while, I usually came to like it - it made for a social environment, you could pick on whoever put the music on for a bit, make requests, get up and dance for a bit if you got bored, etc.
I guess the point I'm gradually coming to is "different strokes for different folks". I don't listen to Concert, but I can see why people do, why they like it, and I don't really mind outlaying the tiny amount of cash I have to so that they enjoy this thing - in a decent society we do that sort of thing for each other. The gripes really only kick in for me when people want to take something away that I do like - as Jolisa already said, I would hope for a little support at those times even from people who don't like that thing, because it's a society we live in, not a shopping mall. We help each other out.
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It does seem rather OTT as a response. Wrong yes, but totally minor. I remember being on a business trip myself once and getting grilled by the boss for eating peanuts from the minibar. My defense was that it was just unclear what was a fair expense - I was in a motel in the middle of nowhere, there was no dairy or anything for miles around, and the restaurant didn't open for hours, and I was hungry after a hard day working for them. At home I'd have food in the cupboard. His comeback was "yeah but we have to pay for it, and those are some bloody expensive nuts at $10 for a tiny bag". So we agreed that in future if I simply had to have something from the minibar, I just settled it separately at checkout time. I did that a couple of times, enough to bring it home to me just how much of a ripoff motel minibars are, and from then on I planned ahead. Curiously they did not consider it OTT to have one alcoholic drink with the dinner that they paid for from the motel, which was also always at rip-off prices (and way more than $10). I've often thought since that this strange disparity may have come from the fact that the boss was a boozer but he didn't like peanuts.
The problem in the end is actually around clarity, and the boss was fully cognizant of the fact that you have to warn people not to do the things you don't want them to do sometimes. It's what they then do that's grounds for heavier action.
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Christoper, I'm not advocating elimination. People who are into classical music should keep it alive for sure. I like it myself.
Ben, I think you should be reciting this glorious stuff on Concert Radio.
Bedtime with Ben? A bit of slow Vivaldi in the background and I'll have the entire country snoring in minutes.
Do you honestly think radio will still be around in 20 years time ?
Sure of it. Think how long it's been going already. It might change a bit, but I'm pretty sure there's only going to be more radio. It really is a good way of delivering one way long distance data. Perhaps the exact technology will change, something like the move to FM, but the basic idea will continue.
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If children were unable to forget a lot of their experiences, they would fail to learn just as much. It seems likely that we have a finite ability to store information, and we forget almost everything, actually. We just remember what is relevant. If it stops being relevant, then forgetting it is not a disaster. It is a natural process and the backbone of the functioning of our amazing brains. I don't see every leaf on the tree out my window, and remember all of them. I see a tree, which is an abstraction, a generalization, a forgetting of the detail. Some images are retained with great clarity, but not all.
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