Jun 12 2008
Welker’s daily links 06/11/2008
Published by Jason Welker at 12:30 am under
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Paul Krugman – Bits, Bands and Books – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com
In the future, will everything be free? Well, maybe not everything, but lots more will. Krugman explains why:
“…the ease with which digital content can be copied and disseminated would eventually force businesses to sell the results of creative activity cheaply, or even give it away. Whatever the product — software, books, music, movies — the cost of creation would have to be recouped indirectly: businesses would have to “distribute intellectual property free in order to sell services and relationships.”
About the author: Jason Welker is a teacher at Zurich International School in Switzerland, where he teaches Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Economics. Jason was an international school student in Malaysia before studying economics at Seattle University then earning his Masters in Education. He calls Seattle and Northern Idaho home. In addition to maintaining an economics wiki and this blog for economics student and educators, Jason also gives presentations on using Web 2.0 tools in education at workshops and conferences around the world. His economics wiki won the 2007 "Best Educational Wiki" award from the "EduBlog Awards". Related posts:
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If people are forced to give things away, what incentives do they have to produce anything?
The technological shift to everything electronic and accessible at the click of a mouse has made our world shrink, increased potential entrepreneurial endeavors, and has expanded our expectations, tastes, and standards for entertainment and businesses. These are all great things that have allowed us to become educated about things we would have normally never learned about and has also strengthened our competitive market economy by making comparative shopping extremely easy.
The concern I have with the ease of duplication, thus the lower and lower prices of software, music, movies, literature, etc. is that the incentives to create and innovate will slowly diminish and people will be less inclined financially to develop the things that we as a society have come to love and deem as the rewards of being successful and affluent. Or just purely the need for entertainment and enjoyment. Applying a simple economical concept: the multiplier effect; if innovations are not rewarded with the driving force of a capitalist economy (money), there will be less spending from consumers, eventually leading to less financial incentive for producers and a slowing production of technology, GOOD music, GOOD movies, GOOD literature, new small businesses etc.
Basically, even though it is extremely nice to be able to find almost anything I want on the web for free with enough digging, we might need to see a change in security standards for file sharing, registration and (gasp) paid subscriptions to certain websites to maintain the quality standards required to satisfy our wants. Some of these ideas are already in progress and have been tried, please keep in mind, these suggestions are just some random thoughts from a beginning AP Econ teacher enjoying the content of your blog and website.