Solidarity Goods

Speaking of the awesomeness of Clay Shirky, Niko sent me this interview clip with the man himself that David scored.

He mentions that that true social change of technology is only realised when it becomes boring [or invisible - I probably stole the idea from him, as well as Heidegger] and that we are currently in an email, not fbook, age

He then goes on to talk about something else that I've been trying to talk about for ages: how the fragmentation of culture doesn't mean the end of the passive massive - the binary opposition fallacy once again comes into play - it just means that there will be less mass things and more niche things.

Then he says something legendary, using a class of economic goods called solidarity goods.

Solidarity goods are goods that increase in value as the number of people enjoying them increases. He uses The Office as an example - the program is good, but it's better when you can talk about it with other people that have seen it.

He then points out that previously solidarity goods achieved their status via the scarcity of bandwidth.

When TV channels and other media were scarce you could reach mass audiences very easily - so everything on these channels became solidarity goods.

Now, something can only become a solidarity good if it actually interests the people - it needs to earn attention: it earns the right to be mass.

[Mr Shirky - if by any chance you read this, can I come audit one of your classes please?]