The Essence of Mars
They have always been presented to me as “Profit is the American Way and the right of the entrepreneur.” True enough, but so often big companies are not about the entrepreneur. They are about the shareholder and the focus isn’t on good products, corporate responsibility, or doing what is right for employees and customers. These things only come into play when its serves the corporate profit making machine. With the events of the last two decades and the last two years in specific, I harbor a lot of hate for corporations. They cause good men to debase themselves and essentially perform morally questionable acts in the name of freedom and profit. I get that freedom means that these things can happen and I accept that. What I can’t accept is our own weakness. Our behavior enables corporate greed and dehumanization to continue. But this is just a little back-grounder on my anger for today.
Today’s rant is largely centered on media and service providers. They have a basic misunderstanding of their place in the world. Media companies have been striving to put the lock on the public and get us to switch to a coin operated entertainment society. They not only want us to buy their products (music, movies, games, books and TV shows) but they want to charge us each and every time we use the product. Slowly, so slowly they push is to this. If they can’t charge us for that, they want to charge us on a metered basis for the bandwidth. Somehow, they wish to ensure that we pay and pay and pay. No more hours and hours of enjoyment of your favorite album. Pay. No more watching your favorite movie 10 times. Pay.
The media companies are like a hydra, attacking us from multiple angles. They use their broadband divisions to squeeze us. They lobby congress to take away our fair use rights and impose longer and longer protected copyright. (I’m looking at you Disney fuckers. Your fucking stupid mouse should be public domain by now.) They wage campaigns telling us that the measures they want to take to restrict us are about piracy, when in truth it’s about control. They know that less than a percent of the pirates would actually pay for the stuff they are stealing if they had to pay for it. They stage showcase prosecutions to look like the victims and depict the artists as the ultimate victim. Even when we know that the majority of the royalty money doesn’t go to the artist.
When I go to the grocery store and buy a box of Kraft Dinner, I pay. If and when I desire a second box, I pay again. Should I desire a Russet potato, or perhaps a Haas avocado, I pay for them. Setting aside the fact that these items are used up, I pay for them because food is a necessity. I will continue to pay for food or seeds or whatever I need to do to survive. Media companies think that what they offer us exists in the same place with nourishment on the hierarchy of needs. They cannot imagine that we will NOT choose what they offer us and in only the manner in which they desire to offer it. Their hubris clouds their judgment.
I wish to support artists. Even those artists and writers working behind the scenes at big media conglomerates. I want to see a new Star Trek movie every few years. I want the occasional Hollywood blockbuster. I even enjoy some of the pap that they put on the television. I am WILLING to pay for it. Just not the way they ultimately want me to. I refuse a coin-operated entertainment society. When I buy a movie, I damn well will watch it whenever I wish. When I purchase an album, I will listen to it as much as I wish. If I wish to consume my TV from an online source such as Hulu, refuse to be fucked by the goddamn bandwidth provider for doing so.
I will not accept restrictions that make the use of the entertainment media I purchase difficult or put it in peril of being lost due to unreasonable DRM schemes. Make no mistake, media companies, that while I would rather not, I CAN live without you. Others of a more consumer friendly bent will rise in your place should you continue with your anti-customer and greedy ways. We would be happy to pay you if you weren’t such utter pricks about it. Consider yourselves warned.
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