In his latest book, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, author Jeremy Rifkin describes the effects of not having to pay for anything. Like me, I’m sure he’s aware that his book definitely falls into that category. If I wanted to not pay for a copy, I could: Just find the book on a bittorrent and download it “free.”
Regardless, Rifkin’s point is that in the future you probably won’t have to pay for anything. Ever. A 3D printer will allow you to produce anything you want while paying only for the base material. It’s a radical idea, and one that may prove to be the end of capitalism. My thoughts: And the end of our culture as well.
Without any monetary incentive to obtain anything, what’s the point for the artist or author to create anything? Beyond the generic items, nothing original would ever exist.
Consider my morning: I read newspapers and magazine articles from all over. For that privilege I pay nothing. Thirty years ago, I’d have to subscribe (pay) for the newspapers and periodicals.
To watch a video on YouTube I pay nothing. I listen to music and I pay a pittance for it. (I subscribe to a few music services, but the cost is ridiculous when compared with actually buying the music.)
No money is going out, so why do people wonder why the middle class isn’t growing? My theory is they can’t because the masses on the Internet demand their stuff at no cost. Free. Nothing. And that’s what we all get paid: nothing.
That’s just from an artist or author’s perspective. Outside the creative community, you see the negative effects that the Internet is having on traditional business. Unless you’re talking about food, the brick-and-mortar economy is rapidly coming to a close.
Why open a retail store, a brick-and-mortar? Amazon and online stores will kill your business; they’ll undermine your profits because they have fewer employees and pay no sales tax.
My suggestion for fixing this problem: Shut down the Internet.
If the Internet suddenly stopped, or say some disaster befell the web and everything was offline for a month, imagine the money surging elsewhere into the economy. Desperate for news, you might actually buy a newspaper. Imagine that!
You want to listen to a song. Unless you can hack into an MP3 player and fetch the music, you’ll need to find one of the few music stores left on the planet and actually purchase a CD.
When you’re bored, you’ll go to a movie theater and watch a show you’d otherwise purloin from the Pirate Bay. “Hey! It looks good on the big screen,” you’d say.
Of course, I can be wrong and I usually am. Perhaps the problem isn’t the Internet but that our economic system hasn’t adjusted to handle such a thing. That might be it, but I don’t see anyone intelligent enough to offer a solution. Not yet, at least.
