Much like Paul Feldman, the bagel guy we wrote about in Freakonomics, Jane Siberry has decided to offer her wares to the public via an honor-system payment scheme. She gives her fans four choices:
1. free (gift from Jane)
2. self-determined (pay now)
3. self-determined (pay later so you are truly educated in your decision)
4. standard (today’s going rate is about .99)
Then, cleverly, she posts statistics on payment rates to date:
% Accepting gift from Jane: 17%
% Paid by determining price: 37%
% Paying Later: 46%
Avg Price Per Track: $1.14
% Paid Below Suggested: 8%
% Paid At Suggested: 79%
% Paid Above Suggested: 14%
Even more cleverly, Siberry posts the average payment rate for each song as you pull your payment option from the drop-down menu — another reminder that, Hey, you’re more than welcome to steal this music but here’s how other people have acted in the recent past. Methinks Ms. Siberry grasps the power of incentives quite well. This allows for at least a couple of interesting things to happen: people can decide what to pay after they hear the music, and see how much it’s worth to them (it looks like people generally pay the most per song under this option); and it takes the variable-pricing scheme that economists love and puts it in the hands of the consumer, not the seller.
I think record companies will need a lot more convincing before they’re willing to try this model on a large scale. Presumably, Jane Siberry fans who go to her website to get her music are a deeply self-selecting lot, far more devoted than the average downloader. But as desperate as the record companies are, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of this in the future. (Perhaps someone’s already doing it — please let us know if you know; and thanks to Gordon Morrison for the Siberry tip.)
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At the end of the chapter on cheating you mention that Feldman seems to side with Socrates and Adam Smith who argue that people are generally good even without reinforcement. I think that many of the 87 percent of the people who do not steal do not do so because of religous convictions, namely fear of the negative consequences of sinning. Thus Feldman’s case is not exactly analagous to “the Ring of Gyres” case where there is absolutely nobody watching. But then again the people who stole from Feldman did not receive any tangible and physical enforcement, but I guess it all boils down to how religious convictions serve as an effective enforcer.
At the end of the chapter on cheating you mention that Feldman seems to side with Socrates and Adam Smith who argue that people are generally good even without reinforcement. I think that many of the 87 percent of the people who do not steal do not do so because of religous convictions, namely fear of the negative consequences of sinning. Thus Feldman’s case is not exactly analagous to “the Ring of Gyres” case where there is absolutely nobody watching. But then again the people who stole from Feldman did not receive any tangible and physical enforcement, but I guess it all boils down to how religious convictions serve as an effective enforcer.
I was going to mention Magnatune too; it featured in an Economist article a while ago.
I was going to mention Magnatune too; it featured in an Economist article a while ago.
Maybe my comment didn’t show because I included a link. Here it is naked http://economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4368092
Maybe my comment didn’t show because I included a link. Here it is naked http://economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4368092
@WashingtonHeights: I find your premise utterly offensive.
You presume that morality – in this case the decision “to steal or not to steal” – and the ability to know right from wrong and act accordingly are purely a consequence of “religious conviction.” By your definition, “religious conviction” must mean a set of value-judgements acquired from religious texts (Bible/Torah/Koran), and learned from teachers (Sunday school et al) and experiences superimposed on people’s fundamentally evil, base natures and motivations.
So if I don’t go to church I’ll steal everything that’s not nailed down? My bad.
Organised religion (just as much as many other social and political movements throughout history) is guilty of countless acts of immorality, cruelty and inhumanity in the past and right now in this very moment. If religious conviction leads us to make fundamentally ‘good’ decisions, how do you explain the Inquisition? Bombing Iraq in the name of God? The crusades? … “Thou shall NOT kill.” … Jihad against cartoonists? Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Serbian Orthodox-Albanian Muslim, Sunni-Shiite and countless other religiously motivated acts/killings/cultures of violence?
I contend that the majority of people are fundamentally ‘good’ because it is in our nature to recognise the benefits of enlightened self interest (i.e. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”). This is however contingent on societal and social structures of some kind being reasonably intact (see Lord of the Flies) – war zones totalitarian regimes and other extremes certainly bring out the worst in us.
Just because I do not subscribe to the tenets of one organised religion or another does not make me a thief. I pay for my bagels.
Religion does not automatically equal morality. Doing right or doing wrong comes from inside you, not on orders from God.
@WashingtonHeights: I find your premise utterly offensive.
You presume that morality – in this case the decision “to steal or not to steal” – and the ability to know right from wrong and act accordingly are purely a consequence of “religious conviction.” By your definition, “religious conviction” must mean a set of value-judgements acquired from religious texts (Bible/Torah/Koran), and learned from teachers (Sunday school et al) and experiences superimposed on people’s fundamentally evil, base natures and motivations.
So if I don’t go to church I’ll steal everything that’s not nailed down? My bad.
Organised religion (just as much as many other social and political movements throughout history) is guilty of countless acts of immorality, cruelty and inhumanity in the past and right now in this very moment. If religious conviction leads us to make fundamentally ‘good’ decisions, how do you explain the Inquisition? Bombing Iraq in the name of God? The crusades? … “Thou shall NOT kill.” … Jihad against cartoonists? Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Serbian Orthodox-Albanian Muslim, Sunni-Shiite and countless other religiously motivated acts/killings/cultures of violence?
I contend that the majority of people are fundamentally ‘good’ because it is in our nature to recognise the benefits of enlightened self interest (i.e. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”). This is however contingent on societal and social structures of some kind being reasonably intact (see Lord of the Flies) – war zones totalitarian regimes and other extremes certainly bring out the worst in us.
Just because I do not subscribe to the tenets of one organised religion or another does not make me a thief. I pay for my bagels.
Religion does not automatically equal morality. Doing right or doing wrong comes from inside you, not on orders from God.