[mythtv-users] Let's get our heads straight here on listings solutions

[Joe Borne]

OK, I have watched for a few days and I had to chime in here.

I'm going to be blunt and somewhat rude. No one take it personally. I'm not
attacking anyone. I'm lending my expertise here. All I do all day is find
solutions to problems like this. But I am seeing ideas being floated that we
should not be wasting our time with. I am a very staunch supporter of the
MythTV concept and I would like us to stay focused and solve this issue
effectively.

Recent suggestions that we begin a modern day version of a 'letter writing
campaign" to all of the TV stations in the world to get listings posted for
free is just patently silly. I was frankly stunned anyone took it seriously.
Any time you start trying to solve a problem and you say to yourself "First
I'm going to get everyone in the world to change their attitude about X",
you're doomed. Hence why no one buys those hideous electric cars that look
like Darth Vader and the Easter bunny mated. Why? Because no one wants to be
seen in them. They are nerdy. And no amount of eco-friendliness or "SUV
guilt" is going to overcome that.

Now there is a guy out there making ones that look like (and perform like)
Ferrari's. They are very expensive, they cost more to power with electric
than you would with gas.  He can't sell them fast enough. Kapitch?

This idea of getting all TV stations to post their listings is deeply flawed
because it places the burden or all the work on the TV stations and gives
them absolutely nothing in return. They have ZERO motivation to help us and
in fact the most powerful of all motivations not to - laziness. An effort
such as this would require HUGE amounts of energy from us and would produce
next to zero results because the stations get nothing out of it.

Now, the folks who are discussing ways to get large vendors such as Yahoo,
Google, Amazon etc involved with the enticement of a commercial opportunity
are on the right track.

The psychological fact is - every entity, whether an individual or
corporation is 100% selfishly motivated. Even people who give their lives to
performing charitable works (yes, even GPL stuff) fall in this category
because what they do makes them feel spiritually  or psychologically
fulfilled. They are still getting a payoff.

If we want a long term, robust solution that gets better every year - find a
way for someone to make money, or get a similarly satisfying reward doing
it. Since corporations produce and control this data, and they care not for
spiritual needs, appeal to their primary motivator - profit.

This is the most effective, and yes _moral_ way of solving this. There is
nothing more moral than rewarding someone for providing something to you
that you value, except perhaps being the provider.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/attachments/20070622/6de17034/attachment.htm