Its like saying that there isn't a functional free market for social networks because you want a subscription-supported site while Facebook, etc, are ad supported. The fact that a seller won't sell on the terms I want doesn't mean its not a free market.

In fact, one indication of a "free market" at work is when they're selling things you don't like.

We're talking about a government-created monopoly though.

If there is competition over distribution, rather than content, better delivery mechanisms eventually win.

We had this when FM displaced AM radio. There was a compulsory licensing regime, which means that anyone can distribute any content they want for a reasonable fixed fee. FM was a better distribution technology, so it won, but only because it was allowed to compete on the same terms, with the same content.

Compulsory licensing was a tactic used to shift profits from content creators to middlemen.

It's true that governments attempt to ensure property rights in other things. But tangible goods have a natural scarcity, while scarcity is imposed on digitial copies. My use of a plow excludes your simultaneously use of the plow. My use of an mp3 does not.

Government steps in and limits the technology artificially, creating an artificial scarcity, not unlike a "club good": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_good

The fact that widgets are "rivalrous" is exactly why they're poor candidates for such schemes. But the way we sell "widgets" isn't the ideal way to provide all things. The way we sell widgets wouldn't be a good way to sell street lighting or national defense, however, because those goods are "non-excludable," meaning you get free rider problems.

So we have different systems for different goods based on the properties of those goods. Ocean going vessels don't shop for lighthouses at a corner store, and we don't have a municipal fund set aside to supply every child with popsicles.

My humble suggestion is that we treat digital content more like other non-rivalrous goods, and less like popsicles.

> Compulsory licensing was a tactic...

Compulsory licensing arose in many different domains for different reasons. Radio, live performances, cover bands all have somewhat unique histories that defy one simple damning motive. Regardless of past motives, I'm happy to agree that compulsory licensing wouldn't be a good scheme if its only benefit was to move profits from one group to another.

It improves efficiency more broadly though. There are several reasons, but for one, consider the transaction costs to any negotiation with any content holder. If society can just have that negotiation once, publicly, it will save everyone a lot of hassle.

It also cleanly addresses the holdout problem, I find that a major perk.

Anyway can you explain your widget scenario more? In particular, how is it less fair than existing compulsory radio licensing?

Almost all markets have elements of regulation, and these must be kept in mind when discussing solutions.

Copyright laws stand in the way of a free market. If there was a free market anybody could make a copy of some content and sell it (perhaps they would have to pay parts of the profit to the original owners, but nevertheless anybody would basically allowed to sell what they want: that's what a free market is about).

In the case of television and film content there are basically no non-exclusive relationships between content creators and their distributors. I cannot buy only the content, I must buy their distribution restrictions as well.

Really? You can export all your Facebook data and switch to another social network that will import it all? Please tell us all how you do this.

You're ignoring the huge effect of lock-in for a site like Facebook: they have all your data, and there's no way for you to get it back in a non-proprietary format. Functionally this is basically the same as DRM: you don't control how you can access your social network data, Facebook does.

You still exist as an independent entity. There's no data you have on facebook that you can't possibly do without. And you almost certainly concurrently exist on several social networks.

I'm not really sure how you can try to argue that this is a similar kind of 'lock-in' to the fact that there is only one distributor for any piece of content and they control that distribution online pretty much right to my TV. Social networks are nothing like that.

There's also no "content" (movies, music, etc.) that you can't possibly do without. (I, personally, do do without, in the case of both Facebook and movies, music, etc. with DRM.) Just as you can pick a different social network provider if you don't like Facebook (or, in the extreme, give up social networks altogether if none of them will give you what you want, as I do), you can pick a different content provider if you don't like the ones that try to control distribution (or, in the extreme, give up online "content" altogether if no providers will give you what you want, as I do).

But if you want to interact with particular people online, and they're all on Facebook, you have to use Facebook, just as if you want to watch a particular movie, and it's only available from one provider, you have to use that provider. And in both cases, the incumbent can make it very, very difficult to switch if they control enough of the market. (In the social network case you describe, you say the original provider was "dominant demographically and regionally", but that basically translates to "not as dominant as Facebook". Did people really switch because Facebook gave a better experience, or because it connected them to a larger network?) The lock-in dynamics work the same either way.

But you started this conversation talking about the data facebook holds that locks you in. Relationship data is trivially rebuildable (and often benefits from periodic culling anyways), so that leaves the more concrete data like pictures and posts. Those are important, but most people seem to treat them pretty much as ephemeral in practice.

So at this point I don't really know what you're arguing or why you're arguing with me. Yes, the people are the important thing in a social network. Where they go you go. If your friends all go somewhere else, you will follow them. Where this differs from films or television is that, unlike films and televisions, your friends can two-time another network that offers a different value proposition until the network effects catch up. I've seen this happen personally, and that was my original point.

And just to clarify on this:

> ou say the original provider was "dominant demographically and regionally", but that basically translates to "not as dominant as Facebook"

When I talk about facebook coming on to the open market, I mean literally in the 6 months or so after people who didn't go to an accredited university could use it. At the beginning of that we were, within that region, absolutely more dominant than facebook (obviously). We were much more dominant than myspace (less obvious, and we were very proud of it) even. We were the #1 social network in that region hands down.

At the end of that 6 month period the network effect had completely shifted to them and people were visiting our site once a month who previously visited several times a day. When we changed things up, they just stopped coming rather than bother learning how to use the new stuff.

Yes, in response to you saying that the analogy with social networks was weak. I was pointing out that, while the specific mechanism of lock-in may differ, the underlying logic appears to me to be the same in both cases.

> Relationship data is trivially rebuildable (and often benefits from periodic culling anyways)

I think this depends on the person.

> that leaves the more concrete data like pictures and posts. Those are important, but most people seem to treat them pretty much as ephemeral in practice.

Do they? Or do they just, without thinking about it, assume that the content will always be there on Facebook (or wherever), so they don't have to worry about managing it themselves, backing it up, etc.? My money is on the latter.

This, btw, is another way in which the analogy between movies, music, etc. and social networks is a good one: in both cases, people seek short-term satisfaction without stopping to think of the longer-term effects of their actions, on both them and society. The result is that people end up locked into a walled garden that gets more and more difficult to escape without giving up the activity altogether.

> Where this differs from films or television is that, unlike films and televisions, your friends can two-time another network that offers a different value proposition until the network effects catch up.

But that means they haven't really switched networks; they're just using two instead of one. Similarly, people can get content from more than one provider.

> At the end of that 6 month period the network effect had completely shifted to them

Why was that? That's the key question I was asking. Was it because FB actually delivered a better user experience, or just because FB gave them access to a larger network?

Maybe you should look up the definition of "free market economy". If DRM is part of the price of viewing the content, that's part of the economy. Non-DRM protected content is still available, in the same market, but is generally less sought after in the same way that people are usually much less interested (if at all) in content that does not have a price or is completely free. If something has value, the creator usually wants to receive that value for their work.

TL;DR: This is exactly a free market economy. Anybody can provide content. There is no price fixing. Access to the content is not government controlled. Etc. Etc. The only thing standing between you and the content you want is what the creator/owner of that content wishes to receive from you in exchange for the content, be it money, DRM embedded in the delivery tools, etc.