Scarcity and Abundance
Scarcity and Abundance -
Two terms that would never be discussed pre -internet. Everything was scarce, or made to appear scarce – despite what George Gilder said. (he said technology always produces abundance for the economy – this was pre the internet revolution as well)
The great think about scarcity is, if your the one promoting it, it produces fear, control, large profits and well fear (again). And in controlling wealth (old-style) these are Good Things.
The bad thing about scarcity is that it produces fear, doubt,hopelessness and bitter rich people.
Abundance is of course the opposite.Abundance – well just say it out loud – AH Bun Dance – just say it and you fell expansive – abundant…abundance produces well abundance.
Of course Internet or no Internet its how you think. The Robber Barrons, The Internet Whiz Kids, Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner etc – all believed in abundance, for them. Just not for you.If you think abundance there is abundance if you think scarcity there is scarcity.
But whats interesting and exciting about the internet is it promotes ‘abundance’. Google may be taking over the world, but it seems to be doing so at the same time as opening up all these vast tracks of abundance for us to follow and play with. The bigger Google gets, the more distribution there is, the more links there are, the more free access we all get.The more chance and opportunities the new comer with nothing is offered.Its just most people dont get it, locked in their scarcity thinking.
For instance: the music industry, the music recording industry to be precise
OK everyone hates change – especially if it means you lose your monoploply and an easy way of exploitntg the consumer (scarcity model)
Now the Music Industry as a whole is Expanding- more people go to concerts more people listen to more kinds of music than ever before. The Music Industry is expanding. CDs may not be selling the way they use to – but musicians are not making less, opportunities in fact for music are, well abundant – more so than ever before.
Why?
Because the consumer, the world has suddenly free abundant access to music – downloading, iTunes, P2P – music can be everywhere – you can afford to have music everywhere – and all kinds, you can listen to things you would never listen to before – try out diffrent tastes, explore dirrefent tastes – music is everywhere. Every kind.
Dont forget there was time when the record store only stocked the top ten singles. Nothing else. There was a time when you ONLY had access to music through a record store. Can you imagine. And the store closed at night, and on Sunday. Talk about control.
Now that was a good thing for the Monolithic recording industry – not the new struggling artsit of course – the recording industry. They controlledd accessand sitribution.
But now look.
For instance.
INO Records in Nashville took a song ‘Mockingbird’ by Derek Webb, that wasnt moving and gave it away for free – all you had to do was give them your email address and location (wow an opt-in page) Give your email address, and location, city, etc and I think they had to give five friends.
So the musician Derek Webb now had a list,and location of all the emails. So then he broadcasts to these emails when his live show comes to their town. He sells out his shows – before he could barely pack a cupboard. Not only sells out his shows, but has merchandise at his shows, the record company has promo products and free give-aways and merchandise at his shows – boom. Abundance. The music fans love it, the musician loves it, the indy record company loves it.
Imagine if the record companies stopped whining and said ok we will give you our music for free , a track at a time – give us your email and address or at least city – so we can promote the artist to you for live shows etc.
The record companies would have huge lists – and lists are the true value. They could make more money consistently and be seen as the music listeners friend so easily. They could give us free stuff, give us information to shows, discounts to shows, extras up grades etc etc – so easy.But that would require change and a mental effort. What fat cat wants to do that.
Think of this – ‘they’ say - (‘they’ being Google) – that there are more than (and this was last week) 1 trillion unique URLs (webpages) on the internet.
Lets say each page takes – an hour? on average to create? – some ten minutes some three hours – so 1 hour average, for talking’s sake. So the web represents 1 trillion hours of labour -thats the equivalent (again’they’ say) of 32 million people working full time for 15 years . How much would you pay to get all that done?
But almost half of that was and is done for free – your blog, your squeeze page, your Flickr page your Facebook pages etc. Free labour, free and willing labour built this place.
Scarcity doesn’t exist here.
So think abundance
There’s enough room for Google and the Frank Kerns and Microsoft (though they have a steep learning curve right now) and Linux and free and paid models and every combination and -AND -Enough Room for You.
In fact they’re waiting for you, and me, and that guy over there, counting on us, to fill that gap.
Popularity: 2% [?]
