If guaranteed minimum income and universal healthcare were a thing, I think so many of my programmer colleagues would immediately take low-income sabbaticals to write high-quality good-ui users-first free and open source software that it would inspire tedious "how was it possible?!?" medium dot com thinkpieces for years and years
@datagrok Except the other half would write horrible computer games that nobody wants to play,,,
@amsomniac @datagrok There can be only so many games with a cult following at a given time, and that number doesn't grow with the number of games being developed.
@deshipu @amsomniac shrug, i wouldn't care if 95% of programmers went off and improved their skills making "bad" games, if it means the rest can embrace their passion, write high quality free software, push back against the tide of crap from silicon valley. totally worth it.
(also i don't think the solution to "too many options" is policing people's art, it's developing better collaborative recommendation systems. something i might work on if i didn't have to worry about health insurance...)
@datagrok @amsomniac You have a point. Though restrictions and challenges are what makes creating art interesting in the first place. I am all for making people's lifes easier and making doing awesome things less risky -- it can only bring good in the long run. But that doesn't work too well with thw current global market and the "winner takes all" attitude. I guess we have more fixing to do. But universal income is certainly a step in the right direction, medical care is a no-brainer.
@deshipu @amsomniac tangent: i believe part of the reason software creates a "winner takes all" market is due to elimination of people's basic ownership rights. if people had the ability to study, modify, and build upon their software the way they can with any physical good, there would be more collaboration, market options, small shops serving niche interests.
free software and copyleft helps address this imbalance, and universal income would let more people write free software.
@datagrok @amsomniac I'm really not sure it's the copyrights that are the worst barrier to collaboration. Most people don't even have the slightest idea about how the law actually works. I've been making, using and modifying open source software for the last 20 yeras, and from my experience actual collaborration is very rare simply because it' super hard to collaborate on complex software, and most people don't care enough to try. Copyleft won't change it.