shirky

In an essay, "The case against micropayments" , Clay Shirky of NYU summed up the main problem in three words: "users hate them" .

The great majority either fail to obey Shirky's Law, or else are knockoffs that do little not already done by an existing site.

A second reason developers fail to obey Shirky's Law is the desire to do impressive-seeming things.

Mr Shirky reiterated his point in another essay, "Fame vs fortune" , sparked by the launch of a micropayment system called BitPass.

Shirky's catchphrase serves as a guideline to predict future events: Behavior is motivation filtered through opportunity.

Clay Shirky's latest book is "Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. "

"No model of paywall will save general-interest papers running commodity news, " says Mr Shirky.

Shirky also noted how the newspaper business thrived for decades because it sold its products in a bundle.

Flattr tackles the problem of Mr Shirky's transactional mental costs in two ways.

But it and most other social websites (apart from the knockoffs) don't even come close to obeying Shirky's Law.

Shirky does a good job of showing how some recent protests have used the tools of social media.

"Society doesn't need newspapers, " wrote Clay Shirky in a widely read blog post this March.

The writer and web commentator Clay Shirky suggested that people should think more carefully about how they see the world.

Some observers, such as Clay Shirky, a professor at New York University, have argued that they have been an important catalyst for change.

The rise of the affluent society has left people with lots of time and talent to spare, Mr Shirky argues.

Mr. Azhar, of PeerIndex, calls this "the Clay Shirky problem, " referring to the writer and theorist who doesn't use Twitter much.

Mr Shirky doubts that most newspapers can get people to pay up online.

Why is Shirky's Law so hard for developers to obey?

The third reason developers fail to obey Shirky's Law is that it's difficult to do.

There are some apparent exceptions to Shirky's Law.

It is this last case, the sharing of information, that humans do freely and actually want to do, according to Shirky.