Kevin Kelly -- The Technium
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Saved by 10 people (-3 private), first by anonymouse user on 2007-12-03
- Maximizen on 2009-03-11 - Tags economics , technology , freemium
- Mostly on 2008-04-09 - Tags technology , free , digital , internet , freedom , open
- Takuya514 on 2008-04-08 - Tags no_tag
- Ianclaudius on 2008-02-21 - Tags no_tag
- Jpkalin on 2008-02-20 - Tags economics , technology , free , web2.0
Public Sticky notes
Let me state it more precisely: Over time the cost per fixed technological function will decrease. If that function persists long enough its costs begin to approach (but never reach) zero. In the goodness of time any particular technological function will exist as if it were free.
Highlighted by eyalnow
“there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of about 1 percent per year over the last 140 years.” For a century and half prices have been headed toward zero.
Highlighted by eyalnow
Your laptop today may seem like the same laptop you had several years ago, but it ain’t. We still call it a laptop, but it is essentially an entirely new species of technology. The track of its price over time is thereby disrupted by the fact that its performance has changed while its name remained the same
Highlighted by takuya514
In other words, any service or product that can be easily defined will become a commodity and drop towards zero. The definition of a commodity is partly that which is a fundamental ingredient for other goods and partly that which is fixed in utility. The simplicity or complexity of a good is not really central to whether it is a commodity. If its utility function has become fixed by use, its price will head toward zero. A one minute voice phone call is an incredibly sophisticated, technically complex good, but its utility is fixed (one minute of okay sounding conversation) so it is quickly headed to being free.
Highlighted by digitalwaveride
In other words, any service or product that can be easily defined will become a commodity and drop towards zero.
Highlighted by takuya514
But while we can expect the zero-price option (ZPO) in all industries and all major products and services, the corresponding counter price for the bundled functions will vary all over the place, often expensively. Somewhere refrigerators will be free, but the conditional functions (either buy all your food from Whole Foods, or pre-pay for electricity, or subscribe to a meal inventory program) definitely will not be zero. I like to think of it as the Zero-Price Uncertainty Principle. If you fix the price of one facet to zero, you can’t fix any of the other facets to zero. Only one function at a time can be fixed at zero.
To be clear, the ubiquity of the ZPO is within the domain of the commodity; it is an option for the consumer. It doesn’t mean the ZPO is available everywhere, only that some company somewhere will offer the ZPO for each function.
To be clear, the ubiquity of the ZPO is within the domain of the commodity; it is an option for the consumer. It doesn’t mean the ZPO is available everywhere, only that some company somewhere will offer the ZPO for each function.
Highlighted by digitalwaveride
In other words, any service or product that can be easily defined will become a commodity and drop towards zero.
Highlighted by eyalnow
Over time, every successful luxury becomes defined by its use and the other goods that piggyback on it. It then becomes a commodity.
Highlighted by eyalnow
Additionally, this same network of communications spreads learning fast and furious. The news of how to make something more efficient travels almost instantly from the inventor to the entire technium. Tools such as online patents and reverse engineering techniques as well as great mobility among workers all contribute to promiscuous exchange of learning. Further, advanced technologies that encourage cooperation and collaboration permit faster invention and distribution of those inventions, which in turn permit the competitive pressure for lower prices to take effect quicker and deeper. Finally, the market for the finished goods is boosted by easily assembled networks which can gain members quickly. The more units produced or consumed, the faster the learning cycle for efficiency and price reduction. These five traits of networked technology – perfect market competition, price transparency, innovation sharing, collaboration, and expanding markets – ceaselessly push technology toward the free.
Highlighted by maximizen
Technology wants to be free, as in free beer, because as it become free it also increases freedom. The inherent talents, capabilities and benefits of a technology cannot be released until it is almost free. The drive toward the free unleashes the constraints on each species in the technium, allowing it to interact with as many other species of technology as is possible, engendering new hybrids and deeper ecologies of tools, and permitting human users more choices and freedoms of use. As a technology grows in abundance and cheapness, it is more likely to find its appropriate niche which it can sustain itself and support other technologies in commodity mode. As technology heads toward the free it unleashes the only lasting thing it can: options and possibilities.
Highlighted by digitalwaveride
All these options make the consumer king, because you pick and choose where you want your free.
Highlighted by eyalnow
Almost any product or service can be unbundled into various combos of functions, where one of the strands is priced as free, while the others remain expensive.
Highlighted by eyalnow
But while we can expect the zero-price option (ZPO) in all industries and all major products and services, the corresponding counter price for the bundled functions will vary all over the place, often expensively.
Highlighted by eyalnow
I like to think of it as the Zero-Price Uncertainty Principle. If you fix the price of one facet to zero, you can’t fix any of the other facets to zero. Only one function at a time can be fixed at zero.
Highlighted by eyalnow
The zero-price option, which was once very rare, is now being driven to ubiquity by network effects.
Highlighted by eyalnow
As members are added to a network linearly the value of the network increases exponentially, which charted looks “as if” it were headed toward infinity. The compounding numbers of members made commoditization possible, fluid, and fast.
Highlighted by eyalnow
. Further, advanced technologies that encourage cooperation and collaboration permit faster invention and distribution of those inventions, which in turn permit the competitive pressure for lower prices to take effect quicker and deeper.
Highlighted by eyalnow
These five traits of networked technology – perfect market competition, price transparency, innovation sharing, collaboration, and expanding markets – ceaselessly push technology toward the free.
Highlighted by eyalnow
The technium conspires to guide manufactured items toward the free, where they can unleash their maximum good. The free, not the costly, is the true home of technology.
Highlighted by eyalnow
As it became free, it became more indispensable in the ecology of the technium, and more instrumental in unleashing other technologies. It also became a factor in driving other technologies toward the free. In this way it is like health; free technologies tend to enable other technologies toward the free, in a self-sustaining, self-creating loop.
Highlighted by eyalnow
There is a similar self-reinforcing positive feedback loop in the free-ization of technology. Nearly-free goods permit waste and experimentation, which breed new options for that good, which increase its abundance and lower its price, which generate more new options, which permit further novelty.
Highlighted by eyalnow
Technology wants to be free, as in free beer, because as it become free it also increases freedom. The inherent talents, capabilities and benefits of a technology cannot be released until it is almost free. The drive toward the free unleashes the constraints on each species in the technium, allowing it to interact with as many other species of technology as is possible, engendering new hybrids and deeper ecologies of tools, and permitting human users more choices and freedoms of use. As a technology grows in abundance and cheapness, it is more likely to find its appropriate niche which it can sustain itself and support other technologies in commodity mode. As technology heads toward the free it unleashes the only lasting thing it can: options and possibilities.
Highlighted by eyalnow
Public Comment