the economics of abundance, wired chris anderson

THE ECONOMICS OF ABUNDANCEChris Anderson, Wired

What happens when things get free?

“Waste is Good”

Alan Kay, Xerox PARC (1972)

“Waste Transistors”

“Waste Storage”

“Over 2775.261837 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message”

(Remember “Your mailbox is full”? What was that about?)

“Waste Bandwidth”

For the first time in history, complexity is free

Scarcity Abundance

Scarcity Abundance

Scarcity Abundance

Scarcity Abundance

Scarcity

Abundance

The Long Tail of MediaNYTCNNWashPos

tAP

BBC

SF ChronGuardian

YomiuriWiredBoston

GlobeTimes UKForbesTimeFox NewsBiz WeekPBSNPRMNSBCMTVCBS

NewsCBS News

CNN MoneyTelegrap

hCBC.caSydney

Morning Herald

SJ Merc Chic TribReutersIHTWSJEconomist

FTESPN Post-Gazette

PR Newswir

e

Scarcity

=

Abundance

=

Scarcity: “Guess”

Abundance: “Measure”

Scarcity: “NO”

Abundance: “YES”

BUSINESS MODEL

ROI Memo We’ll figure it out

Scarcity Abundance

RULES

“Everything is forbidden unless it is permitted”

“Everything is permitted unless it is forbidden”

Scarcity Abundance

SOCIAL MODEL

Paternalism (“we know what’s best”)

Egalitarianism (“you know what’s best”)

Scarcity Abundance

DECISION PROCESS

Top-down Bottoms-up

Scarcity Abundance

MANAGEMENT STYLE

Command and Control

Out of Control

Scarcity Abundance

Blog: thelongtail.com