The Value of Content May Decrease No Matter What We Do

This is more of an observation than an idea.

I believe that we may have to come to grips with the reality that as "digital content" (text, music, video, etc.) becomes easier to produce, more democratized, and nearly free to distribute, it may become a less valuable commodity due to supply and demand forces. I'm not sure this is either good or bad — it is just the likely result of low–cost, easily accessible information and communication technologies.

Rather than mourning the past — or worse, trying to protect outdated economic models — we need to rethink and reinvent models that work in a world where content by itself cannot command high prices.

Comment

Boothie — 2010–07–08 04:15:33 EDT wrote

That's why it would be so forward looking, and as such, investment friendly, of us to admit that digital content has trivial value, furthermore that there is no such thing as information crimes. There are, of course, real world fraud and real assault on children, there is real terrorism, but information itself can do no harm. Many industries survive without Intellectual Property rights, and so can music and movies. We simply have nothing to gain from bringing laws into the Internet, and yet if we lose our anonymity we lose so much else.