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Comment by AndrewDucker | Hacker News Reader

This is absolutely true - for digital content.

For physical content, scarcity still sells. Take Amanda Palmer's Kickstarter - selling huge amounts of specially made CDs, books, personal visits, etc.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amandapalmer/amanda-palm...

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Absolutely agree. But what if the next big wave is making physical 'content' abundant instead of scarce? 3D printing, the internet of things, etc. That's what I'm starting to think about...

There are a couple of interesting books about that topic [1, 2]

The premise of most of them is that innovation its outpacing the hability of the average person to keep him self employable. That will lead to massive unemployment, bigger wealth inequality and social unrest.

[1] Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy

[2] The lights in the tunnel. Where will advancing technology, job automation, outsourcing and globalization lead?

I'm starting to think that the key is to help the unemployed, the '99%', the 'others', to learn how to build their own businesses, their own livelihoods. To stop depending on someone else to provide a livelihood for them. That's where we're heading, in my view. That's the only way out of the current mess. Not to get too hippie-ish, but it's about combining self-interest with empathy for others.

"combining self-interest with empathy for others" is basically the real-deal Adam Smith brand of capitalism. Not the hollywood/cliffs-notes version we're living in now...

Meh. If I can print a spatula or buy one for $1 at Wal-Mart, I could care less. Printing will work for some stuff, but consider a) materials used to print still aren't any more plentiful just because you can shape them and b) expensive, hetereogenous, multipart things can't be printed, e.g. a complete car (engine, chairs, windshield, seatbelts, etc.) 3D printing looks like it makes cheap items cheaper. So, what, we put a few businesses out and free up some of China's workforce?

I don't disagree that this might be accurate description of what's available now. But that's just a snapshot, and the situation is dynamic. It changes every day. Things get easier every day.

Software and virtual goods are getting more abundant and easier to access every day. I think the next big step will be applying those same lessons to the physical world. Freeing ourselves from scarcity.

(yes, I watched a documentary on Ray Kurtzweil recently and may be extrapolating and getting ahead of myself. But that doesn't mean it can't be true)

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