Reading the article 'Information Abundance, Attention Scarcity' I was struck by an interesting idea. The article almost makes it, but I think it bares clarifying and repeating...
The article mentions Fred Wilson's assertion of Abundance that states (and I paraphrase):
"In the old world, product scarcity (along with demand) created value. In the digital world it is actually abundance which creates value (network effects and social software)."
However I would go one step further and say...
If scarcity creates value then the balance of power has shifted.
In the old world products were scarce - this meant that companies who provided product could profit from the demand.
In the digital world, where abundance is key (creating a digital copy costs next to nothing) it is a customer's attention that has become scarce. This means that the customer now holds the value - not the company.
This is an interesting paradigm shift. Something that Seth Goldstein's Root.net and others are trying to capitalize on.
The article mentions Fred Wilson's assertion of Abundance that states (and I paraphrase):
"In the old world, product scarcity (along with demand) created value. In the digital world it is actually abundance which creates value (network effects and social software)."
However I would go one step further and say...
If scarcity creates value then the balance of power has shifted.
In the old world products were scarce - this meant that companies who provided product could profit from the demand.
In the digital world, where abundance is key (creating a digital copy costs next to nothing) it is a customer's attention that has become scarce. This means that the customer now holds the value - not the company.
This is an interesting paradigm shift. Something that Seth Goldstein's Root.net and others are trying to capitalize on.