Commons as a New Paradigm for Governance, Economics and Policy - P2P Foundation: "Which brings me to what I call the tragedy of the market, often known as market enclosure. Over the course of several centuries, but especially in the 19th Century, the English aristocracy colluded with Parliament to privatize the village commons of England. The commons was 6 essentially dismantled. Enclosure was a way for the landed gentry to make a lot of money and consolidate their political and economic power.
"The great, unacknowledged scandal of our time is the large-scale privatization and abuse of dozens of resources that we collectively own. Today’s enclosure movement is an eerie replay of the English enclosure movement. A prime example: International investors and national governments are now buying up farmlands and forests in Africa, Asia and Latin America on a massive scale, at discount prices, in collusion with host governments. Commoners who have grown and harvested their own food for generations as a matter of custom, are being thrown off their lands so that large multinational corporations and investors can take them. The basic goal is to secure a geo-political advantage, sell food to global markets or simply make a speculative killing."
If the focus is only on what happens in the digital space, then we'll likely not see world economics change significantly.
Commons are an important concept for environmental protection. The world's air, water, and temperature are global issues and shouldn't be governed by a system that sells off important resources to the highest bidder.
You'd still be affected by disruptive innovation, but you'd have better skills at handling the disruption and turning it to your advantage.
I wish we'd have more stories coming out of Silicon Valley like this. "We've invented this new thing and we'll give it about two years before something else comes along."
I think it might be good to also think in terms of climate change as being the ultimate disruptor. If it is coming as fast as scientists predict, then more people need to be thinking about how life will change for them and their customers.
There are a few companies/cities looking into risk management and re-engineering in anticipation of water levels rising, more disruptive weather events, and so on. But most people are still operating on a business-as-usual scenario.
I suppose that is a challenge in itself. If you design companies to be extremely flexible, thereby adjusting to changes that may come about very rapidly, how do you also plan for events that will be happening 10-50 years down the road? What's the right balance of very short term and very long term?
I embrace the concept of disruptive innovation. Therefore, I am continually amazed at how often people continue to assume that whatever big tech company dominating the current news now will continue to do so very long.
It was hard to get people to realize Apple would not be the leader forever. It was hard for people to look beyond Facebook for the next wave of social media.
But if you have been following tech companies long enough, you know that whatever forces allowed them to rise are the same forces which will allow other companies to come in to take over from them.
I'd much rather people think small, innovative, and even temporary than to get excited by market cap. In fact, we should be telling ourselves that the moment a company's market cap reaches a certain point, it's time to think about the company's decline and perhaps even encourage the company's break up. Let's move beyond the idea that big is better or even desirable.
In a lot of the press coverage of Silicon Valley I see a certain myopia among the folks there suggesting they don't see disruption coming their way. But it will, and it will be good if Silicon Valley is no longer the center of the tech innovation universe. It's time to have less concentration.
Yes, because companies don't employ people and don't buy goods or services from other companies. Companies shouldn't be paying taxes on income in the first place.
That's fine. Then revise the tax system so that taxes are raised another way. Of course, consumers aren't going to like seeing their taxes go up. But someone needs to pay for what the government provides. And if people want to end government services, then they need to be prepared for the changes in the economy when government jobs, government contracts, and transfer payments disappear.
The thing about multi-nationals is that that they are essentially stateless. They don't need any particular country anymore and can pick and choose where they do business to avoid laws and taxes.
The fact that the world economy is dominated by multinationals is, to me, a much bigger issue than copyright. Given that big companies have lots of control, it seems like fighting them over copyright should put you right in the middle of discussions about power/ownership/influence in the global economic situation.
Imagine a world where no one has to pay for anything. The system is set up so people "can" pay if it suits them, but they don't have to pay. Goods and services are out there to be used/taken/shared and no one will send anyone after them if they use those goods/services without payment.
I'm not just talking about digital content. I am talking about everything.
The best path to success is to identify what it is that you can provide that is unique, and to provide it at a fair price ("price" in the larger sense, not as a synonym for "money".)
Palmer does this. So should everyone else, whether they're artists or not.
Yes, I agree.
What's important to understand about Palmer is that what she offers is only somewhat related to music. I view her as a performance artist, a party/event organizer, and (this is in no way a criticism) a paid friend.
I think Palmer contributes a lot to the conversation because she says insightful things about being an artist and getting paid as an artist.
She's far more open than most, and when it comes to money, she's exceptionally open compared to most artists/musicians.
She does get criticized on her blog for some of what she does, but that's because often she takes risks and those risks generate feedback.
Now, as I have said, I'd like to push the envelope further and see all businesses experiment with the Palmer model. Make everything you do available for free. Ask for payment if you like, but accept it when you don't get it.
Can you imagine a company like Google not pressuring its customers to pay up? Can you imagine the health care system not pressuring anyone to pay up? Can you imagine the energy industry not pressuring anyone to pay up?
Think about how profoundly different the world economy would be if everyone used Palmer's approach? Maybe it shouldn't just be for artists?
Here, this is the sort of thing that I read about. There's a lot of worker displacement. While this situation might work itself out, it could take a generation or two. I believe we're in a change as significant as the Industrial Revolution and I see lots and lots of disruption before we settle into the next economic age.
I meant to say, "The competition for the jobs is so high that it drives DOWN the need to pay them anything."
That's the trend I am watching. There is an excess of workers for many jobs and employers don't need to pay much to get people to work for them. However, that puts less money in people's pockets.
On the upside, though, is that as spending goes down, consumption also goes down which is better for the environment.
The artist has always relied on their fans, as paying for art is discretionary.
Quite a long time ago, the artist was just a person who lived in the community. The people who got the special attention were the religious leaders and the royalty/tribal leaders.
Artists as a special class, distinct from their fans, is a relatively recent development. And technology is allowing people to revert back to the days where art is democratized.
It's easier to see the progression with photography than with music. When photography first came out, very few people took photos. Now nearly everyone has a quality camera on them at all times in their smart phones. As a result everyone takes photos, shares photos, and publishes photos. The need to pay high priced photographers has gone down because the average person can often capture a photo worthy of display in a major publication. People still might hire a photographer for a wedding, but overall photography is a art that nearly everyone does now, and in many cases does well.
If you couple improved technology with an expanded sense of community, you get a situation where there might be more focus on sharing art rather than a wall between artist and fan where fans pay artists in direct transactions. Everyone becomes an artist him or herself rather than a fan of artists. You have a community of artists rather than a community of fans around an artist.
"Unpaid internships" might disappear if the minimum wage was abolished.
Did you read the article? These are people working in jobs where they are working for free in hopes of getting money eventually. However, in most cases that won't happen. Their employers know they can get them to work for free or little money and some of these young adults end up doing it for years, but the better jobs never happen.
There's really nothing to do with minimum wage. The competition for the jobs is so high that it drives done the need to pay them anything.
But eventually, when you have enough people working for free, they don't spend money and the industries they might have supported no longer have customers that can spend money. I think we are headed that way with a lot of spending. The money that is available will go for the necessities and the other spending will decline.
Palmer's talk was about an economic exchange. She provided something and got something in return (usually money, but maybe help).
What I see happening as a result of technology is that the tools are allowing more people to do things for themselves that they couldn't have done in the past. There's a democratization of creation going on. That means people are less dependent on others to create for them. They have been given the tools to do it themselves. It has changed the music industry and opened up the door for far more people to make music. They don't need years of training. They don't need to have exceptional talent (because they tools will cover for them). They don't need to be in awe of others who create music because the process has become far more accessible to them.
So the business model of the artist and his/her fans doesn't seem so secure to me. It implies people will pay for the privilege to be fans, but I'm not sure how long that attitude will continue.
I think there should be some control over the project. To make it concrete, the people proposing a project should say how much it will cost to do what they propose and how much they want to receive in exchange for doing it. I think the parent organization should even provide help in such things as describing projects in a meaningful way, helping them with the budgeting, and providing evaluation criteria to say whether or not a project was successful. It shouldn't be like a gold mine where people are trying to strike it rich, but if the project does succeed, then they can submit another project, hopefully a more ambitious one.
And I think that's why Palmer ran into some criticism with her Kickstarter project. Since she raised so much money, but then said she still didn't have enough to pay cash for the extra musicians at each stop, there seemed to be some lack of transparency. (She did end up paying them after she got some bad PR for not doing so.)
People contributing to Kickstarter projects often like to think they are making the project happen, not just that they are buying something. And as they become mentally (and perhaps financially) invested in those projects, they may come to see themselves as something more than fans. They are now part of the project and want to know all the details.
No, you can't just post a few tweets and expect the world to beat a path to your door, but no worthwhile artist would. A good artist is passionate about their art and has already been building a fan base for nearly as long as they have been creating said art. They are usually just afraid to approach those fans because it could be seen as demeaning. It's time we (the general public) stopped kneeling before the mighty labels and started respecting these artists instead of telling them to stick it in the closet and go get a job (figuratively or literally).
Many singer/songwriters understand the concept of a tip jar and will put it out at shows if that's going to be their primary way to get paid. But, unlike some online forms of payment, a tip jar is a personal interaction. The tipper puts the money in a jar, the artist sees it, and there is acknowledgement on both sides. It's much less likely to happen online. Dropping money in an online tip jar doesn't give the tipper the very visible interaction that happens in person, especially when his friends at a show with him can see him tip. (I've been at shows where a slightly drunk fan will give the singer $50 to sing happy birthday to someone.) It's theater, and Palmer understands theater very well.
I am specifically addressing what Palmer says she does. When she stays at a fan's house or gets a ride from a fan or someone brings equipment to a show, there is a face-to-face exchange. That's what I am trying to say. Unless you, the artist, are up for that kind of interaction with your fans, it is hard to get the same kinds of results that Palmer is able to get.
I've been to art openings where the artist is there schmoozing the rich patrons because that approach helps to sell $10,000 artwork. But musicians as a group don't tend to come from a schmooze-your-patrons culture. I don't think the problem is that they won't ask. It's that they don't want to put in the time it takes to get the results.
Palmer gives herself to her fans. Not every artist is willing to do that.
It's sometimes said that the film industry is following behind the music industry. But do you think this strategy would work for filmmakers?
What Palmer does isn't really easily duplicated. She seems to have an unusual amount of energy, plus she seems to genuinely like to talk to and hang out both with her fans and people who could become fans. She's upbeat and is an endless source of creative ideas and experiments.
What Palmer is "selling" isn't so much her art as her friendship, her conversation, her events, and so on. As she says in the video, what people get from her are smiles, recognition, eye contact, etc. She's like that superfun person from high school that lots of people want to hang out with.
You can't just put your work up online and send out some tweets and hope to connect with people the way she does. She has real conversations all the time. Most artists would find that both exhausting and a distraction from their "creative work."
On the post: A Look At 'Ownership' Society
Re: A great discussion of commons
Nine Core Commons Principles | On the Commons
On the post: A Look At 'Ownership' Society
A great discussion of commons
"The great, unacknowledged scandal of our time is the large-scale privatization and abuse of dozens of resources that we collectively own. Today’s enclosure movement is an eerie replay of the English enclosure movement. A prime example: International investors and national governments are now buying up farmlands and forests in Africa, Asia and Latin America on a massive scale, at discount prices, in collusion with host governments. Commoners who have grown and harvested their own food for generations as a matter of custom, are being thrown off their lands so that large multinational corporations and investors can take them. The basic goal is to secure a geo-political advantage, sell food to global markets or simply make a speculative killing."
On the post: A Look At 'Ownership' Society
Don't limit it to digital ownership
Commons are an important concept for environmental protection. The world's air, water, and temperature are global issues and shouldn't be governed by a system that sells off important resources to the highest bidder.
On the post: Is The 'Innovator's Dilemma' About To Get Disrupted By 'Big Bang Disruption'?
Re: Re:
I wish we'd have more stories coming out of Silicon Valley like this. "We've invented this new thing and we'll give it about two years before something else comes along."
On the post: Is The 'Innovator's Dilemma' About To Get Disrupted By 'Big Bang Disruption'?
Re: Expecting big tech to be taken down, too
There are a few companies/cities looking into risk management and re-engineering in anticipation of water levels rising, more disruptive weather events, and so on. But most people are still operating on a business-as-usual scenario.
I suppose that is a challenge in itself. If you design companies to be extremely flexible, thereby adjusting to changes that may come about very rapidly, how do you also plan for events that will be happening 10-50 years down the road? What's the right balance of very short term and very long term?
On the post: Is The 'Innovator's Dilemma' About To Get Disrupted By 'Big Bang Disruption'?
Expecting big tech to be taken down, too
It was hard to get people to realize Apple would not be the leader forever. It was hard for people to look beyond Facebook for the next wave of social media.
But if you have been following tech companies long enough, you know that whatever forces allowed them to rise are the same forces which will allow other companies to come in to take over from them.
I'd much rather people think small, innovative, and even temporary than to get excited by market cap. In fact, we should be telling ourselves that the moment a company's market cap reaches a certain point, it's time to think about the company's decline and perhaps even encourage the company's break up. Let's move beyond the idea that big is better or even desirable.
In a lot of the press coverage of Silicon Valley I see a certain myopia among the folks there suggesting they don't see disruption coming their way. But it will, and it will be good if Silicon Valley is no longer the center of the tech innovation universe. It's time to have less concentration.
On the post: So Much For Protecting US Interests - Most Big 'IP Intensive' Firms Are Foreign-Owned
Re: Re:
That's fine. Then revise the tax system so that taxes are raised another way. Of course, consumers aren't going to like seeing their taxes go up. But someone needs to pay for what the government provides. And if people want to end government services, then they need to be prepared for the changes in the economy when government jobs, government contracts, and transfer payments disappear.
On the post: So Much For Protecting US Interests - Most Big 'IP Intensive' Firms Are Foreign-Owned
Re: Re: First Revolution to the second...
On the post: So Much For Protecting US Interests - Most Big 'IP Intensive' Firms Are Foreign-Owned
Concentration of power
On the post: What The Tesla / NY Times Fight Teaches Us About The Media
I didn't know Tesla had a history of aggressively complaining about media
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: Re: Re: Re: So here's a question
Imagine a world where no one has to pay for anything. The system is set up so people "can" pay if it suits them, but they don't have to pay. Goods and services are out there to be used/taken/shared and no one will send anyone after them if they use those goods/services without payment.
I'm not just talking about digital content. I am talking about everything.
Imagine such a system.
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: Re: Re: So here's a question
Palmer does this. So should everyone else, whether they're artists or not.
Yes, I agree.
What's important to understand about Palmer is that what she offers is only somewhat related to music. I view her as a performance artist, a party/event organizer, and (this is in no way a criticism) a paid friend.
I think Palmer contributes a lot to the conversation because she says insightful things about being an artist and getting paid as an artist.
She's far more open than most, and when it comes to money, she's exceptionally open compared to most artists/musicians.
She does get criticized on her blog for some of what she does, but that's because often she takes risks and those risks generate feedback.
Now, as I have said, I'd like to push the envelope further and see all businesses experiment with the Palmer model. Make everything you do available for free. Ask for payment if you like, but accept it when you don't get it.
Can you imagine a company like Google not pressuring its customers to pay up? Can you imagine the health care system not pressuring anyone to pay up? Can you imagine the energy industry not pressuring anyone to pay up?
Think about how profoundly different the world economy would be if everyone used Palmer's approach? Maybe it shouldn't just be for artists?
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: Working for free
Corporate Profits Soar as Worker Income Limps - NYTimes.com
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: Re: Re: Working for free
That's the trend I am watching. There is an excess of workers for many jobs and employers don't need to pay much to get people to work for them. However, that puts less money in people's pockets.
On the upside, though, is that as spending goes down, consumption also goes down which is better for the environment.
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: Re: The problem with fandom
Quite a long time ago, the artist was just a person who lived in the community. The people who got the special attention were the religious leaders and the royalty/tribal leaders.
Artists as a special class, distinct from their fans, is a relatively recent development. And technology is allowing people to revert back to the days where art is democratized.
It's easier to see the progression with photography than with music. When photography first came out, very few people took photos. Now nearly everyone has a quality camera on them at all times in their smart phones. As a result everyone takes photos, shares photos, and publishes photos. The need to pay high priced photographers has gone down because the average person can often capture a photo worthy of display in a major publication. People still might hire a photographer for a wedding, but overall photography is a art that nearly everyone does now, and in many cases does well.
If you couple improved technology with an expanded sense of community, you get a situation where there might be more focus on sharing art rather than a wall between artist and fan where fans pay artists in direct transactions. Everyone becomes an artist him or herself rather than a fan of artists. You have a community of artists rather than a community of fans around an artist.
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: Re: Working for free
Did you read the article? These are people working in jobs where they are working for free in hopes of getting money eventually. However, in most cases that won't happen. Their employers know they can get them to work for free or little money and some of these young adults end up doing it for years, but the better jobs never happen.
There's really nothing to do with minimum wage. The competition for the jobs is so high that it drives done the need to pay them anything.
But eventually, when you have enough people working for free, they don't spend money and the industries they might have supported no longer have customers that can spend money. I think we are headed that way with a lot of spending. The money that is available will go for the necessities and the other spending will decline.
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
The problem with fandom
What I see happening as a result of technology is that the tools are allowing more people to do things for themselves that they couldn't have done in the past. There's a democratization of creation going on. That means people are less dependent on others to create for them. They have been given the tools to do it themselves. It has changed the music industry and opened up the door for far more people to make music. They don't need years of training. They don't need to have exceptional talent (because they tools will cover for them). They don't need to be in awe of others who create music because the process has become far more accessible to them.
So the business model of the artist and his/her fans doesn't seem so secure to me. It implies people will pay for the privilege to be fans, but I'm not sure how long that attitude will continue.
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: Re: Amanda Palmer for RIAA President
And I think that's why Palmer ran into some criticism with her Kickstarter project. Since she raised so much money, but then said she still didn't have enough to pay cash for the extra musicians at each stop, there seemed to be some lack of transparency. (She did end up paying them after she got some bad PR for not doing so.)
People contributing to Kickstarter projects often like to think they are making the project happen, not just that they are buying something. And as they become mentally (and perhaps financially) invested in those projects, they may come to see themselves as something more than fans. They are now part of the project and want to know all the details.
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: Re: Re: So here's a question
Many singer/songwriters understand the concept of a tip jar and will put it out at shows if that's going to be their primary way to get paid. But, unlike some online forms of payment, a tip jar is a personal interaction. The tipper puts the money in a jar, the artist sees it, and there is acknowledgement on both sides. It's much less likely to happen online. Dropping money in an online tip jar doesn't give the tipper the very visible interaction that happens in person, especially when his friends at a show with him can see him tip. (I've been at shows where a slightly drunk fan will give the singer $50 to sing happy birthday to someone.) It's theater, and Palmer understands theater very well.
I am specifically addressing what Palmer says she does. When she stays at a fan's house or gets a ride from a fan or someone brings equipment to a show, there is a face-to-face exchange. That's what I am trying to say. Unless you, the artist, are up for that kind of interaction with your fans, it is hard to get the same kinds of results that Palmer is able to get.
I've been to art openings where the artist is there schmoozing the rich patrons because that approach helps to sell $10,000 artwork. But musicians as a group don't tend to come from a schmooze-your-patrons culture. I don't think the problem is that they won't ask. It's that they don't want to put in the time it takes to get the results.
Palmer gives herself to her fans. Not every artist is willing to do that.
On the post: Amanda Palmer On The True Nature Of Connecting With Fans: It's About Trust
Re: So here's a question
What Palmer does isn't really easily duplicated. She seems to have an unusual amount of energy, plus she seems to genuinely like to talk to and hang out both with her fans and people who could become fans. She's upbeat and is an endless source of creative ideas and experiments.
What Palmer is "selling" isn't so much her art as her friendship, her conversation, her events, and so on. As she says in the video, what people get from her are smiles, recognition, eye contact, etc. She's like that superfun person from high school that lots of people want to hang out with.
You can't just put your work up online and send out some tweets and hope to connect with people the way she does. She has real conversations all the time. Most artists would find that both exhausting and a distraction from their "creative work."
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