It's Not Just The Entertainment Industry Facing An Economic Upheaval
from the hello,-energy... dept
People often ask why we focus on the entertainment industry so much around here, and one of the points I've tried to make is that what's happening in the entertainment industry is nothing but a precursor to what's going to happen in almost every industry out there, as new technologies come about that change the fundamental economics that their old business models relied on. Healthcare? Packaged goods? Food? Financial services? All may be facing similar issues before you know it, and having a clear understanding of what went right and wrong in the entertainment industry will hopefully help those industries avoid making the same mistakes (they can make new ones instead!).Another industry where this is already starting to happen is energy. In a discussion on HP's datacenter efforts, there's a quick discussion of how the energy industry is facing the same "dematerialization" threat as the music business:
But ultimately, the goal is making the world lighter, also called "dematerialization." Information technology can help replace energy-intensive and carbon-heavy methods--with basic materials, business processes or entire business models. Think of how the digital transformation has completely redefined the production and distribution of music.While it may not seem to impact people as directly, I'd argue that what eventually happens in those other industries will have an impact far greater than anything that happens in the entertainment industry -- so we might as well look deep into what's happening to understand it now, before we create a much bigger mess in other industries.
Extend that model more broadly: By 2012, all of the servers in the world will use as much power as was used by all of Mexico in 2007. Breakthroughs in photonics allow us to use light instead of copper wire to transmit data. Not only can we reduce the use of natural resources, we can dramatically reduce energy consumption, taking another step forward from the work we've done at Wynyard.
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Filed Under: business models, economics, energy
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Toasters
Take the Toaster. Probably already there is a group online devoted to producing the best toaster. As open source. So we can all, when the self-replicating printer becomes a bit more existant, produce the best toaster ourselves. Cutting out the Toaster manufacturer.
And this applies to pretty well everything?
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Why? Better business models Mike. If you have no qualms about hanging the noose around the music and movie industries, why suddenly the soft spot for energy?
Either you like your "better business models" thing or you don't.
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The energy market is facing different-but-potentially-related problems as technology aims to both reduce the demand for power and create new cost-effective sources of it.
Many existing energy companies have seen this coming and are working to position themselves to take advantage of it (e.g. most of the big oil companies have long since rebranded themselves as "energy" companies rather than "oil" companies - BP Solar is one of the major suppliers of commercial solar cells on the planet). Others will be caught short and suffer the consequences (e.g. the electricity distributor that wanted to charge people *extra* if they didn't use as much power due to private solar installations).
That's all that Mike is saying here: companies in other industries should look at what is happening in the entertainment industry (and other industries like newspaper distribution) and ask themselves:
1. What current or in development technologies could be as disruptive to my current business as the internet has been to those industries?
2. What strategy do I have in place to deal with the possible consequences of those disruptions? Am I just sticking my head in the sand and hoping it doesn't happen? Am I lobbying legislators in an attempt to make the foreseen disruption illegal before it actually happens? Or am I considering adjustments to my business model that will allow me to cope with the disruption and maintain (or improve) my position within the industry?
3. Is the likely disruption so severe that it will mean the end of my industry as I know it? If my business is going to go the way of the buggy whip manufacturers, then what is my plan for getting out of this industry and into something else before the imminent collapse of the sector is just as obvious to everyone else as it is to me?
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"dematerialization" threat
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free power
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But thats just part of the story. I would also expect nearly all small items a person needs to be 'printable' at home for the small costs of raw materials ("Honey, were out of carbon again"). Also for large scale production costs to plummet.
"open source" already has extensions into circuit boards, processors, small electronic devices, even things like UAV's. I expect this to extend to all aspects of design at some point.
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