Spotify and the problem of endless musical choice.
the Internet frees up cultural treasures while simultaneously eroding the mechanisms that endow them with value.
Abundance in a twisted way doesn’t help us out. Scarcity creates value, buying creates value and these are not part of the online world where things are 0s and 1s.
It’s weird to be on both ends of the stick where producing music feels like losing my time sometimes when there’s so much online which is something that I appreciate as a consumer on the other side. But I feel like constantly trying to limit myself, to take time to appreciate and on the other side, I try to make music and games that last. Basically going against the grain.
F2P games offer the same engagement problem than Spotify: why people would invest x amount of time in a free game when another free one could be even better a click away. Profusion of choices. It’s too volatile of a behavior to be able to build things on a system like that.
One of the core mechanic of our society – fair exchange- disappeared in our digital culture and I just can’t find a solution except pushing people to be fair and reducing the number of middlemen between customers and creators. But that doesn’t solve the issue.