...inaction...is a serious choice that may have serious consequences, depending upon the circumstances. in fact there are always consequences.
...inaction is a choice. It has repercussions.
As seen in the
Blu-ray thread , consumer's inaction to help decide a new storage format allowed one corporation to win the debate.
Sorry, Rick, but that statement doesn't make sense to me -
First, consumers are generally not the ones to decide a new storage format (except by market forces); Secondly, in this case there was
much action on the part of consumers - both in terms of advocacy on both sides (PC consumers have generally favored Blu-ray for superior data storage, movie publishers favored HD-DVD for its lower initial cost of production), and even market forces, on both sides. In the end, it's difficult to make a definitive statement how much of which was a deciding factor. Thirdly, one group of corporations, led by Sony, 'won'; another group, led by Toshiba, 'lost' - pretty much even result there.
The market I think pretty much took care of itself.
However, the topic you broached (of blu-ray vs. HD-DVD) does bring up an important issue, that of DRM (Digital Rights Management - Blu-ray has much stronger DRM than HD-DVD), which might be very interesting to libertarians.
I suspect that some libertarians might say that this is good for intellectual property rights of corporations; others might argue that this bad for an individual's rights to use and enjoy their personal property; and others might say that corporations should not even exist, at least not in their present form, and certainly should not have rights as 'persons'.
I'm curious to hear what our resident informed libertarian opinionists have to say about that. (like Schlack, I think I need to become better informed before I can have a strong opinion either way)
