THE ECONOMICS OF ABUNDANCE

Chris 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 Media

NYT

CNN

WashPost

AP

BBC

SF Chron

Guardian

YomiuriWired

Boston GlobeTimes UK

ForbesTime

Fox NewsBiz Week

PBSNPRMNSBCMTVCBS

NewsCBS

NewsCNN

MoneyTelegrap

hCBC.caSydney

Morning Herald

SJ Merc Chic TribReutersIHTWSJEconomist

FTESPNPost-

GazettePR

Newswire

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