[p2p-research] collapse of complex societies

[Michel Bauwens]

Thanks for the commentary Matt, it will be published on the 13th,

Michel

On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 12:32 AM, Matt Boggs <matt at digiblade.com> wrote:

>  Clay Shirky's "The Collapse of Complex Business Models," is a thoughtful
> and provocative piece on the way that "high quality" products (which are
> also complex and expensive) reach diminishing returns, where they are being
> made ever-more complex without any rise in value, because the institutions
> that made them don't know how to be less complex. It's a great commentary on
> walled gardens, paywalls, and the reflexive entertainment industry sneer
> that YouTube is made out of nothing but priceless pirated media and
> worthless videos of cats. Before I read the essay, my overall feeling was
> that Diller was stating not a fact, but a half-truth: yes, content must be
> paid for, but it is far from fact that the end users must pay for it. End
> users don't pay for newspapers; advertisers do. End users don't pay for most
> TV; advertisers do. End users don't pay for most content in general;
> advertisers do. This model doesn't work for all content, obviously, but the
> bottom line is that someone must always pay for content--but that someone
> will vary.
> The end user wants lots of content available for as little money as
> possible, paid as simply as possible.
> The content distributor wants to make as wide a profit margin off the
> content it distributes, which involves paying as little as possible to
> distribute it (including to those who actually make the content), and
> charging as much as possible for it.
> The content creator wants to make as much money as possible from its
> creations, while still making (as a general rule) as much good content as
> possible, and paying as little as necessary to get it distributed to the
> widest range of users (the better to sell more content later for more
> money).
>
> Something has to give, but it's not going to be the end user: the end user
> WANTS as much content as possible, but a) there's a whole lot of content out
> there; and b) there's a whole lot of legally free content out there.
> Technically, there's also a c) (some people will choose to illegally obtain
> content for any number of reasons), and it's a big c), but a) and b) are
> more than enough to require distributors like Mr. Diller to change his tune
> or find a new line of work.
>
> After having read the essay, I feel that Shirky generally seems to express
> a similar view, citing Mr. Diller's IAC and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. as
> examples of complex, inflexible bureaucracies. However, I disagree with the
> idea that content creation as a whole is a complex society (it's just a
> chunk of it) that is doomed to utter failure. More persistent storage media,
> combined with lower production costs for content will make labor the only
> serious expense for content creation. This may destroy large corporations,
> but ultimately, it just means that if society itself fails, archeologists'
> chief challenge with deciphering our civilization will be sifting through
> all the ridiculously easy-to-find relics--except for any that are still
> under copyright at that late date. However, our content-generation media,
> despite their protestations to the contrary, only document our civilization.
> They aren't the civilization itself.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Michel Bauwens [mailto:michelsub2004 at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, April 08, 2010 12:19 AM
> *To:* Matt Boggs
> *Subject:* Re: collapse of complex societies
>
>
>
> you can send it to me, yes!, thanks a lot,
>
>
>
> Michel
>
> On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 11:01 PM, Matt Boggs <matt at digiblade.com> wrote:
>
> Sure, I can write something. Do I just write it and send it to this address
> ?
>
>
>
> *From:* Michel Bauwens [mailto:michelsub2004 at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 07, 2010 3:51 AM
> *To:* Matt; Peer-To-Peer Research List
> *Cc:* Samuel Rose; Paul B. Hartzog
> *Subject:* collapse of complex societies
>
>
>
> Matt,
>
>
>
> this is indeed brilliant, and warrants a wider readership via our blog,
> i.e.
> http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/
>
>
>
> is it possible to write two paragraphs of why people should read it?
>
>
>
> I'm on the road and the text is difficult to summarize and quote from,
>
>
>
> Sam and Paul may have interesting comments to add,
>
>
>
> Michel
>
> --
> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think
> thank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think
> thank: http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
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>


-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

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