[p2p-research] Revisiting The Replicator Analogy: How Infinite Goods Create More Jobs

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Ryan,

I have very little connection time right now,

could you possibly publish that qoute, with some context, on our blog as
well?

Michel

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Ryan <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader:
>
>
>  Revisiting The Replicator Analogy: How Infinite Goods Create More Jobs<http://techdirt.com/articles/20090911/0241286162.shtml>
> via Techdirt <http://www.techdirt.com/> by Michael Masnick on 9/11/09
>
> Recently, in writing about a DRM scheme, I used the analogy<http://techdirt.com/articles/20090908/1319056130.shtml>of the
> *Star Trek* food replicator to explain why it made no sense to turn
> infinite goods, like content, into artificially scarce goods. There was a
> lot of back and forth in the comments about the appropriateness of the
> analogy, though I still think the basic point stands: it makes no sense to
> artificially limit an infinitely available resource. In fact, it only leads
> to bad things. However, one of our readers has written up a fantastic blog
> post where he tries to present a similar, but much, much better analogy<http://www.ebooksyearntobefree.com/2009/09/09/infinite-goods-and-artificial-scarcity/>:
>
>
> *A better analogy would be if the replicator only made tomatoes. You could
> have as many tomatoes as you wanted, they'd always be perfect and delicious,
> and they'd always be free. This would put tomato farmers out of business.
> But these tomato farmers could likely start growing something else instead.
> And what happens to the rest of the economy? Pizza and pasta restaurants
> suddenly find that a major ingredient in many of their dishes just became
> free. Now, for the same dish, they can charge less, or buy higher quality
> ingredients, or make more profit. And if you're a really talented cook
> specializing in tomatoes? Your skills are now in very high demand.
>
> And there is still a demand for the people who bring the tomatoes from the
> replicator to your table. There is still a demand for the person who stews
> and cans the tomatoes, or dices and seasons them. And all the other food
> items, the ones that aren't in infitnite supply, still need people to
> produce, process, and distribute them.
>
> This is what's happening in the music industry, and starting to happen in
> the publishing industry. Some parts of the industries are finding their
> functions obsolete. Instead of looking at the money they could save with
> electronic distribution, and what good use they could put that money to, the
> industry is seeking new laws and regulations to limit the infinite supply so
> business can continue as usual.
>
> Even if every single song, book, and movie was distributed digitally for
> free, there would still be a need for the music, publishing, and movie
> industries. There would still be demand for editors, producers, marketers,
> and all sorts of other services that these industries have always provided.
>
> Reasonable people aren't calling for the abolition of the music,
> publishing, and movie industries. They're just asking these industries to
> look to the future, and stop trying to limit supply to protect obsolete
> business models. *
>
> Read that over a few times. It's about the best description/analogy of what
> we've been trying to say here that I've ever heard.
>
> Permalink <http://techdirt.com/articles/20090911/0241286162.shtml> |
> Comments <http://techdirt.com/articles/20090911/0241286162.shtml#comments>| Email
> This Story<http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20090911/0241286162&op=sharethis>
>
>
> <http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=a17801300d8efbe4e1a75a42a1ab768c&p=1> <http://feeds.techdirt.com/~ff/techdirt/feed?a=nrPWtaHXutY:LM1Tm8AOlp4:D7DqB2pKExk>
> <http://feeds.techdirt.com/~ff/techdirt/feed?a=nrPWtaHXutY:LM1Tm8AOlp4:c-S6u7MTCTE>
>
>
>
>  Things you can do from here:
>
>    - Subscribe to Techdirt<http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.techdirt.com%2Ftechdirt_rss.xml?source=email>using
>    *Google Reader*
>    - Get started using Google Reader<http://www.google.com/reader/?source=email>to easily keep up with
>    *all your favorite sites*
>
>
>
>



-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Research:
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org

Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20090912/252dba1d/attachment-0001.html>