6 ms·

After the age of scarcity

61 points by Jgrubb 14y ago

AndrewDucker 14y ago
This is absolutely true - for digital content. For physical content, scarcity still sells. Take Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter - selling huge amounts of specially made CDs, books, personal visits, etc. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palmer-the-new-record-art-book-and-tour http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palm...
- eragnew 14y ago
  Absolutely agree. But what if the next big wave is making physical 'content' abundant instead of scarce? 3D printing, the internet of things, etc. That's what I'm starting to think about...
  - pdelgallego 14y ago
    There are a couple of interesting books about that topic [1, 2] The premise of most of them is that innovation its outpacing the hability of the average person to keep him self employable. That will lead to massive unemployment, bigger wealth inequality and social unrest. [1] Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy [2] The lights in the tunnel. Where will advancing technology, job automation, outsourcing and globalization lead?
    - eragnew 14y ago
      I'm starting to think that the key is to help the unemployed, the '99%', the 'others', to learn how to build their own businesses, their own livelihoods. To stop depending on someone else to provide a livelihood for them. That's where we're heading, in my view. That's the only way out of the current mess. Not to get too hippie-ish, but it's about combining self-interest with empathy for others.
      - efsavage 14y ago
        "combining self-interest with empathy for others" is basically the real-deal Adam Smith brand of capitalism. Not the hollywood/cliffs-notes version we're living in now...
  - figglesonrails 14y ago
    Meh. If I can print a spatula or buy one for $1 at Wal-Mart, I could care less. Printing will work for some stuff, but consider a) materials used to print still aren't any more plentiful just because you can shape them and b) expensive, hetereogenous, multipart things can't be printed, e.g. a complete car (engine, chairs, windshield, seatbelts, etc.) 3D printing looks like it makes cheap items cheaper. So, what, we put a few businesses out and free up some of China's workforce?
    - eragnew 14y ago
      I don't disagree that this might be accurate description of what's available now. But that's just a snapshot, and the situation is dynamic. It changes every day. Things get easier every day. Software and virtual goods are getting more abundant and easier to access every day. I think the next big step will be applying those same lessons to the physical world. Freeing ourselves from scarcity. (yes, I watched a documentary on Ray Kurtzweil recently and may be extrapolating and getting ahead of myself. But that doesn't mean it can't be true)
sellandb 14y ago
I understand what you are trying to say. I am curious though what you recommend as a monetization strategy if you take that route? I suppose ad revenue is always the old fall back, but I would imagine that for a lot of the content out there, that is not free to produce, there needs to be some way to pay the bills.
- Jgrubb 14y ago
  Using the digital content as basically a loss leader for things that can't be distributed digitally, namely live performances and merch that you'd sell at those live performances.
  - alainbryden 14y ago
    It's artists also have a little success with digital 'busking' - where you intentionally deliver high quality content for free, along with a message that asks people to toss a few bucks your way if they think you're worth it. The best written one I've ever seen was Benn Jordan's "Hello Downloader", which is included in all of his self-released torrents: http://www.alphabasic.com/Please_read.html http://www.alphabasic.com/Please_read.html
- sp332 14y ago
  Well if the things you need are not scarce, then it doesn't take as much money to "pay the bills."
  - corysama 14y ago
    Let me know when you have a strategy to make housing into a post-scarcity good like software.
- mr_luc 14y ago
  There's always the old standby: custom-made, one-off products. A concert, for instance; lots of musicians make money through performance. Depending on how crowd-pleasin' your creation is, or how well you've done at finding a crowd, there's a bit of tension possible; a husband who commissioned a Dali portrait of his wife ended up hanging it in his kennels to underscore what he thought of it.
digitalsushi 14y ago
I often daydream about the future of products. I like to imagine what it would be like without fresh fruit, or water so scarce it's illegal to water the lawn. I also imagine the model's counterpart, that some things have become very easy to produce. The article refers to digital content, which can be infinitely reproduced without burden. But I like to wonder, are there physical goods that are close to this digital model - are there some things we can make so much of, that we'll never have to really worry about their production? More to the point, are we entering a period where the baseline is that a person who refuses to work can literally not starve to death because of abundance? If most jobs eventually turn to digital production that can be so easily shared like the article suggests, could we ever see a planet where there are simply not enough jobs and that working is optional since you could subsist on free products?
- pacala 14y ago
  To paraphrase a somewhat popular song from behind the iron curtain: "today I saw again on the TV some fresh fruit". There is no free lunch. You need energy and commodities to get products, and these will be scarce for the foreseeable future.
- ctdonath 14y ago
  At least in the USA... We irrigate our lawns with drinking water. We pay farmers to not grow (or to dump what they do). The greatest medical malady of our poor is obesity. 1 in 50 live on government-provided welfare. The "poverty line" is twenty times world median income. Not quite the idealized form you have in mind, but getting there.
othello 14y ago
"If you're lucky you will have patrons, not customers." Probably the best quote from the post. Soon the only way of making a living from a creative endeavour might be to be funded by patrons, then releasing your content for free. A generalized Louis CK model if you will. Funny how that would bring us back to pre-18th century days where patronage was the only business model in town for creative types, with all the constraints that came with artists-patrons relationships. Except in this world everybody would get to play Medicis or Louis XIV. I certainly hope that "crowd-patronage" will mitigate the limitations of artistic freedom that often came with traditional patronage.
- bluedanieru 14y ago
  I hope Kickstarter eventually does something like this, except with some guarantees on delivery. Like pledges that are only released once the content is delivered.
  - nextstep 14y ago
    That doesn't work. Inventors on Kickstarter need that initial money to create their first product. If we say "no money 'til we have the product," then the inventors will have to go somewhere else to get that seed funding. And then we're back to square one.
    - nooneelse 14y ago
      A two-stage model would seem workable. Stage one would be like Kickstarter as-is: if(speculative funding threshold met), then(inventor/creator gets a payment so they can start work). Stage two would be like a bounty for meeting some further goal(s) (still actively working on it three months later, actually wrote/released the program/art, X number of products shipped in six months, etc). Right now, selling your product to people (who don't get one for being a backer) functions as stage two. But I don't see why formalizing that process would be detrimental (it would also start providing some metrics on "success" beyond "funding success"). Though the issue of who gets to decide if the goal(s) is(are) met is an obvious point of probable contention which needs resolving (backer votes?, panel of experts at the payment escrow service?). As a potential backer of something, I might like to know that there is going to be a continuing clear incentive on the table to keep the creator working through inevitable obstacles. That might increase the number of times I open my wallet.
zdw 14y ago
Creative works have always been purchased on a "Do I enjoy this enough to buy it?" basis. We're used to sampling art, and it's always been this way, whether it be via public art, radio, etc., then we go buy it if we like it. The internet is an evolution of this, but without the controls that distributors are used to (payola anyone?). What RadioLab is trying to do here is using a "free gift" to goose the people who enjoy what they make into giving them some coin. This is very common in public radio and TV, but usually comes in the form of a free t-shirt or coffee mug. In that case the "gift" has dual purpose - it also functions as advertisement and a physical reminder to go watch/listen to the thing you helped support.
mise 14y ago
There's scarcity in spending time with a particular person, for example. Meeting their producers sounds like a good "exclusive" bit of interaction, but I agree about non-exclusivity of content.
- Jgrubb 14y ago
  Precisely. Great songs that touch people are exceedingly scarce. Recordings of great songs are not. Same goes for great books, great movies, great product design.
etrain 14y ago
This goes beyond creative works, but to many other types of digital content. I remember hearing John McAfee discussing trying to come up with a way to sell software, and say something like "here was this thing, that cost absolutely nothing to reproduce and transmit - and so I decided I could give it away for free, and charge for the updates." Pretty much the Gillette Razor model for the 21st century.
sethg 14y ago
Differential pricing is a retail strategy that predates the Internet. If you want to be one of the first people to read a new book by an author you like, you have to spend to get it in hardcover; if you don’t like the hardcover price, wait a year and then buy it in paperback. You can watch a new movie in the theaters, or wait to pick it up on DVD. Pay sticker price for whatever groceries you want, or make the effort to collect coupons and buy the things that are on sale. Etc., etc. It’s all artificial scarcity, in the sense that nothing prevented a publisher from putting out a book only in paperback from day one. “Exclusive content” is the same idea: the only difference is that the discounted price is zero.
- figglesonrails 14y ago
  Yep, and time and time again has shown people pay for sooner. I really think people who assume "scarcity" is the only factor in economic models aren't seeing the whole picture. Exclusivity of group membership (I have a t-shirt, jacket, etc. with this awesome logo I can advertise my social status/beliefs), being "first" in a social group, and just plain impatience or apathy contribute greatly. If everyone was purely rational, I'm pretty sure we'll all use refillable water bottles, personal water filters, and buy food in bulk. Assuming the motivations behind every actor in the economy are purely rational is utterly naive.
WiseWeasel 14y ago
Convenience is still scarce. Digital content doesn't seem quite as abundant to less technically inclined people than HN readers.
T_S_ 14y ago
In this post-material economy, attention is what is scarce. Quality interactions are scarce. Of course we will are not quite there yet, and the material economy is becoming more influenced by externalities like carbon output. Both trends are making it difficult to use the price system as an efficient means of allocating resources.

61 points by Jgrubb 14y ago

This is absolutely true - for digital content. For physical content, scarcity still sells. Take Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter - selling huge amounts of specially made CDs, books, personal visits, etc. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palmer-the-new-record-art-book-and-tour http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palm...

eragnew 14y ago
Absolutely agree. But what if the next big wave is making physical 'content' abundant instead of scarce? 3D printing, the internet of things, etc. That's what I'm starting to think about...
- pdelgallego 14y ago
  There are a couple of interesting books about that topic [1, 2] The premise of most of them is that innovation its outpacing the hability of the average person to keep him self employable. That will lead to massive unemployment, bigger wealth inequality and social unrest. [1] Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy [2] The lights in the tunnel. Where will advancing technology, job automation, outsourcing and globalization lead?
  - eragnew 14y ago
    I'm starting to think that the key is to help the unemployed, the '99%', the 'others', to learn how to build their own businesses, their own livelihoods. To stop depending on someone else to provide a livelihood for them. That's where we're heading, in my view. That's the only way out of the current mess. Not to get too hippie-ish, but it's about combining self-interest with empathy for others.
    - efsavage 14y ago
      "combining self-interest with empathy for others" is basically the real-deal Adam Smith brand of capitalism. Not the hollywood/cliffs-notes version we're living in now...
- figglesonrails 14y ago
  Meh. If I can print a spatula or buy one for $1 at Wal-Mart, I could care less. Printing will work for some stuff, but consider a) materials used to print still aren't any more plentiful just because you can shape them and b) expensive, hetereogenous, multipart things can't be printed, e.g. a complete car (engine, chairs, windshield, seatbelts, etc.) 3D printing looks like it makes cheap items cheaper. So, what, we put a few businesses out and free up some of China's workforce?
  - eragnew 14y ago
    I don't disagree that this might be accurate description of what's available now. But that's just a snapshot, and the situation is dynamic. It changes every day. Things get easier every day. Software and virtual goods are getting more abundant and easier to access every day. I think the next big step will be applying those same lessons to the physical world. Freeing ourselves from scarcity. (yes, I watched a documentary on Ray Kurtzweil recently and may be extrapolating and getting ahead of myself. But that doesn't mean it can't be true)

sellandb 14y ago

I understand what you are trying to say. I am curious though what you recommend as a monetization strategy if you take that route? I suppose ad revenue is always the old fall back, but I would imagine that for a lot of the content out there, that is not free to produce, there needs to be some way to pay the bills.

Jgrubb 14y ago
Using the digital content as basically a loss leader for things that can't be distributed digitally, namely live performances and merch that you'd sell at those live performances.
- alainbryden 14y ago
  It's artists also have a little success with digital 'busking' - where you intentionally deliver high quality content for free, along with a message that asks people to toss a few bucks your way if they think you're worth it. The best written one I've ever seen was Benn Jordan's "Hello Downloader", which is included in all of his self-released torrents: http://www.alphabasic.com/Please_read.html http://www.alphabasic.com/Please_read.html
sp332 14y ago
Well if the things you need are not scarce, then it doesn't take as much money to "pay the bills."
- corysama 14y ago
  Let me know when you have a strategy to make housing into a post-scarcity good like software.
mr_luc 14y ago
There's always the old standby: custom-made, one-off products. A concert, for instance; lots of musicians make money through performance. Depending on how crowd-pleasin' your creation is, or how well you've done at finding a crowd, there's a bit of tension possible; a husband who commissioned a Dali portrait of his wife ended up hanging it in his kennels to underscore what he thought of it.

digitalsushi 14y ago

I often daydream about the future of products. I like to imagine what it would be like without fresh fruit, or water so scarce it's illegal to water the lawn. I also imagine the model's counterpart, that some things have become very easy to produce. The article refers to digital content, which can be infinitely reproduced without burden. But I like to wonder, are there physical goods that are close to this digital model - are there some things we can make so much of, that we'll never have to really worry about their production? More to the point, are we entering a period where the baseline is that a person who refuses to work can literally not starve to death because of abundance? If most jobs eventually turn to digital production that can be so easily shared like the article suggests, could we ever see a planet where there are simply not enough jobs and that working is optional since you could subsist on free products?

pacala 14y ago
To paraphrase a somewhat popular song from behind the iron curtain: "today I saw again on the TV some fresh fruit". There is no free lunch. You need energy and commodities to get products, and these will be scarce for the foreseeable future.
ctdonath 14y ago
At least in the USA... We irrigate our lawns with drinking water. We pay farmers to not grow (or to dump what they do). The greatest medical malady of our poor is obesity. 1 in 50 live on government-provided welfare. The "poverty line" is twenty times world median income. Not quite the idealized form you have in mind, but getting there.

othello 14y ago

"If you're lucky you will have patrons, not customers." Probably the best quote from the post. Soon the only way of making a living from a creative endeavour might be to be funded by patrons, then releasing your content for free. A generalized Louis CK model if you will. Funny how that would bring us back to pre-18th century days where patronage was the only business model in town for creative types, with all the constraints that came with artists-patrons relationships. Except in this world everybody would get to play Medicis or Louis XIV. I certainly hope that "crowd-patronage" will mitigate the limitations of artistic freedom that often came with traditional patronage.

bluedanieru 14y ago
I hope Kickstarter eventually does something like this, except with some guarantees on delivery. Like pledges that are only released once the content is delivered.
- nextstep 14y ago
  That doesn't work. Inventors on Kickstarter need that initial money to create their first product. If we say "no money 'til we have the product," then the inventors will have to go somewhere else to get that seed funding. And then we're back to square one.
  - nooneelse 14y ago
    A two-stage model would seem workable. Stage one would be like Kickstarter as-is: if(speculative funding threshold met), then(inventor/creator gets a payment so they can start work). Stage two would be like a bounty for meeting some further goal(s) (still actively working on it three months later, actually wrote/released the program/art, X number of products shipped in six months, etc). Right now, selling your product to people (who don't get one for being a backer) functions as stage two. But I don't see why formalizing that process would be detrimental (it would also start providing some metrics on "success" beyond "funding success"). Though the issue of who gets to decide if the goal(s) is(are) met is an obvious point of probable contention which needs resolving (backer votes?, panel of experts at the payment escrow service?). As a potential backer of something, I might like to know that there is going to be a continuing clear incentive on the table to keep the creator working through inevitable obstacles. That might increase the number of times I open my wallet.

zdw 14y ago

Creative works have always been purchased on a "Do I enjoy this enough to buy it?" basis. We're used to sampling art, and it's always been this way, whether it be via public art, radio, etc., then we go buy it if we like it. The internet is an evolution of this, but without the controls that distributors are used to (payola anyone?). What RadioLab is trying to do here is using a "free gift" to goose the people who enjoy what they make into giving them some coin. This is very common in public radio and TV, but usually comes in the form of a free t-shirt or coffee mug. In that case the "gift" has dual purpose - it also functions as advertisement and a physical reminder to go watch/listen to the thing you helped support.

mise 14y ago

There's scarcity in spending time with a particular person, for example. Meeting their producers sounds like a good "exclusive" bit of interaction, but I agree about non-exclusivity of content.

Jgrubb 14y ago
Precisely. Great songs that touch people are exceedingly scarce. Recordings of great songs are not. Same goes for great books, great movies, great product design.

etrain 14y ago

This goes beyond creative works, but to many other types of digital content. I remember hearing John McAfee discussing trying to come up with a way to sell software, and say something like "here was this thing, that cost absolutely nothing to reproduce and transmit - and so I decided I could give it away for free, and charge for the updates." Pretty much the Gillette Razor model for the 21st century.

sethg 14y ago

Differential pricing is a retail strategy that predates the Internet. If you want to be one of the first people to read a new book by an author you like, you have to spend to get it in hardcover; if you don’t like the hardcover price, wait a year and then buy it in paperback. You can watch a new movie in the theaters, or wait to pick it up on DVD. Pay sticker price for whatever groceries you want, or make the effort to collect coupons and buy the things that are on sale. Etc., etc. It’s all artificial scarcity, in the sense that nothing prevented a publisher from putting out a book only in paperback from day one. “Exclusive content” is the same idea: the only difference is that the discounted price is zero.

figglesonrails 14y ago
Yep, and time and time again has shown people pay for sooner. I really think people who assume "scarcity" is the only factor in economic models aren't seeing the whole picture. Exclusivity of group membership (I have a t-shirt, jacket, etc. with this awesome logo I can advertise my social status/beliefs), being "first" in a social group, and just plain impatience or apathy contribute greatly. If everyone was purely rational, I'm pretty sure we'll all use refillable water bottles, personal water filters, and buy food in bulk. Assuming the motivations behind every actor in the economy are purely rational is utterly naive.

WiseWeasel 14y ago

Convenience is still scarce. Digital content doesn't seem quite as abundant to less technically inclined people than HN readers.

T_S_ 14y ago

In this post-material economy, attention is what is scarce. Quality interactions are scarce. Of course we will are not quite there yet, and the material economy is becoming more influenced by externalities like carbon output. Both trends are making it difficult to use the price system as an efficient means of allocating resources.