It depends on which part of the process you attribute "scarcity" to. If I drink your beer, it is gone; I have deprived you of it. If you send me a song you have

It depends on which part of the process you attribute "scarcity" to. If I drink your beer, it is gone; I have deprived you of it. If you send me a song you have enjoyed, you still have it, and no-one is deprived of anything. Scarcity on the production side is different and real, but I'm more optimistic. The primary problem seems to be allowing high quality creators to survive full time. Increasingly, it seems to me that people do want to reward other people for stuff that they care about. To return to the song sharing example, I've now been exposed to a creator I might care about, and decide to support in some way. However, this is very different to people wanting to pay rights-holders groups (in money, surveillance capabilities, or attention) for stuff that they're not sure if they care about yet. The brightest future I can imagine involves platforms which facilitate transactions (designed by the creator) and discovery, while having no stake in the IP itself. And it seems possible.