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Comment by Sir_Substance | Hacker News Reader

>No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are.

Historically no, they're not. Paying for a concert before you saw it was unheard of 150 years ago, and your ancestors would have considered you a mug for giving over your money before you knew if it was going to be a good show.

The norm for human history is that you see the show first and then decide afterwards how much it was worth, hence artists passing their hat around the audience. Bad shows got no money, which is how it works for literally everyone else today. We get paid at the end of the month, not the start, and bad enough fuckups get you fired.

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If you get fired before payday, your employer is still legally obligated to pay you for the days you actually did work during that period.

You don't get paid for the time after though.

If I pay for a concert, and I leave 10% of the way in because it's awful, will I get 90% of my money back?

No.

I have never seen a venue that would have failed to give a complete refund in that scenario. That's basic customer service.

In your country/region: maybe. Everywhere: definitely not. The only time I got a refund at a theatre was when a film was dubbed and the ad said subtitled. I left during the first two minutes, and even had to argue to get my money back on such an obvious case.

Well, almost. My lease, cable, and phone bills bill ahead.

Is that appropriate though? Just because it is done that way doesn't mean it should be. It's not that uncommon for people to pay their internet in advance, only for a line outage to go unfixed for a fortnight.

Patticularly in the US, internet access is a cage. There's often only one provider, and their terms and conditons declare service not guarenteed. What choice do you have?

Then google fibre and municipal wifi start showing up, and look how hard comcast et al are screaming.

Maybe your rent, cable and phone need escape hatches as badly as your movie collection?

I don't know. On the one hand, I don't like pre-paying for electricity considering the potentially huge fluctuations in use. On the other hand, I don't use gas and then pay for it. I eat at a restaurant first, then pay, but I buy groceries before I eat.

So I don't know. I can see phone as being a purchase of a block of X to use. The same with rent. Almost all internet comes with an uptime guarantee - say it's 99.9%, if it's down for more than 45 minutes, even Comcast will provide a credit.

I suppose it comes down to how you agree to consume it. I don't mind the 24 hour model on video rentals, when I can start that 24 hours any time within 30 days. I'm purchasing the right to watch the movie as many times as I want in a 24 hour window sometime in the next month. That said, I also believe that if I purchase unlimited video in the form of a DVD or download, I have the right to device-shift it wherever the heck I want.

This is a hairy issue.

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