Yesterday evening, I alongwith my friend watching live performance by Sriram (Indian Idol 5 Winner ) . We were outside the boundary area where the show was going on, straining our eyes to have a peek at the show. Many a thoughts were coming to mind such as to bribe the security guard , to break the boundary wall etc etc.
Yes , you may ask the question , ‘why we were standing outside the boundary & why did not we buy tickets to watch the show comfortably sitting inside the show area ‘
I am tempted to answer that we were having a evening exercise for our 2 pair legs and 3 pair eyes ( as my friend also had specs on) and what is the fun to watch a show by buying a ticket’
However all I can say we did not buy tickets because of the economic theory which states ‘Almost everything you purchase is a bargain, in the sense that you get it for less than the absolute maximum that you would have been willing to pay.’
In this case, the price of the ticket was above the absolute maximum we were willing to pay.
Then I was asking myself, If I had a chance to get inside and watch the show without paying anything ,
Could I have done that.
Before I can answer myself , we came back from that place.
There are two types of people (Actually there are as many types of people in this world as there are
people in this world) first type who believes everything should come at a price ( no piracy , no free stuff ) , the second type ,who thinks ‘everything should be free
I don’t know which group I belong to.
We live in a pirated world , listen to downloaded free music , watch downloaded free movies , read downloaded free e-books. We like things which come free
However those statistics they put regarding loss to music industry, movie industry, publishing industry etc due to prevalent piracy, makes one think regarding the results of our seemingly innocuous actions of downloading and distributing free stuff.
Not going into deal with morals , ethics of the actions I have the following point to make
Without any value assigned to the product , eventually the product will be worthless . Let’s say , by some miracle , from this moment onwards everything becomes free (or we all lost our appetite). Then tomorrow morning , will I go to office to do my job (as if it really matters) . N O WAY
This will happen to all. All we will do, roam around free , eat free food , drink free drinks (vodka martini shaken but not stirred ) , watch free movies , listen to free music etc.
Idea seems fine. To do nothing . To have absolute freedom . However I believe with nothing to achieve, life will be miserable. Eventually everyone of us will get bored with the kind of life and our race may get extinct due to sheer purposelessness of our lives. OR in the contrary we may find the true purpose of life because we will have time to find ourselves.
As we all know the miracle is never going to happen , we end up with the question , ‘what I am willing to pay’
In case my cost for downloading or distributing is more than the cost of buying music , movie , book etc , then we need not search for free stuffs in net. We can buy it and that also with satisfaction that we did something right.
But who is going to fix that absolute maximum ? may be the Invisible Hand revered by econmists
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