It seems that a lot of people from hackish communities use PGP. These people are usually very sensitive when it comes to privacy. It strikes me that they have no trouble with the common practice to list name and e-mail address on one of the PGP key servers (e.g., http://pgp.mit.edu/). This seems to me very odd considering what a registry like this offers in terms of abuse. I would also really like to use PGP but I don't want my details listed on one of these servers. So one approach would be to not put the complete name info in the key to start with. Of course this kind of sabotages the "web-of-trust" idea, but for me, this doesn't work anyway because I would give my key to possible correspondents in person or on business card rather than have them look it up on a key server. I would be very interested to hear what more advanced PGP users have to say on this.

The _general idea_ is that scarcity creates value: "The consumer whose decision alternative is blocked (partially or wholly) by a barrier should become increasingly motivated to obtain that alternative". How it is implemented is an entirely different thing. Apple enthusiasts used to camp in front of stores just to get a telephone. Presumably they would also eat mouldy grapes.

Reactance is a well-exploited marketing instrument. Of course, all you have to do is to _announce_ scarcity. Just one of the tools that Apple uses among others: social visibility, lock-in, planned obsolesence, etc... On the other hand, they might just be overwhelmed because of Jobs' death just before the release. Hmm. Conspiracy anyone?

Piracy does not cause increased consumption, i.e., the article (and presumably also the study) doesn't say: "Pirating is good for the media industry". It just says that media-enthusiasts are also more frequently engaged in piracy. The media industry could still come to the simple conclusion: Increase obstacles to pirating to increase sales. Enthusiastic customer-pirates already spend a good deal on media but they would spend even more without piracy. A follow-up study should probably estimate how media consumption decreases with increased piracy hurdles.