Telepocalypse

Doesn't Raise Money

Tim Lee makes a good point about intra-platform competition between Intel and AMD in processors having had more consumer benefit than the inter-platform competition between Intel and the traditional Power PC architecture for Apple Macs. He notes that DRM and laws like DMCA/EUCD prevent such competition occuring in content-centric consumer electronics devices.

There’s a practical lesson here too. Disinvest in industries heavily reliant on DRM, because they’ll be innovation-free zones. There may be monopoly rents, but the stock will have no ‘pop’ because there’s no growth. For example, contrast the upside potention of multi-player networked games (where DRM is a side-show around automated “cheating” by having robot players) to music and movies. You might be lucky in investing in an Apple-like story at the right moment just as a DRM monopolist emerges, but you’ve probably missed the bus already. Picking individual winners is the posh person’s version of betting on the horses.

PS - Some good news for telcos: the customers are happily paying you for communications, presence and connectivity right now. DRM is not compulsory; call the bluff of the content cartels, you’re ten times their size. If you use DRM, make it protect the user’s own content instead.