Since my previous post and the one before it, both of which dealt with the difficulty faced by media content today in preserving value, an idea has started to crystalize, that a fundamental reason behind this difficulty is the very product-feature that was supposed to enhance content value: “on-demand” access, in its various manifestations. For purposes of argument, let’s think of things such as interactivity, online editions, blogs, YouTube, iTunes, customized preference settings on services like Pandora and others, as variations on the theme of “on-demand.” In other words, the definition is broad, and applies to any form of content that can be had with the click of a mouse. The list of these forms is growing.
Independent of price, the ready and unobstructed availability of a given product will, after the novelty of instant access has worn off, have a negative impact on its sustainable value. In the world of video, we prize the opportunity less to tune in at a particular time and a particular network, knowing that we can tune in at any time, and from any place for that matter, to see the same (or virtually same) content online. In the world of music, we need no longer wait for a DJ on the radio to get around to a certain title, and we don’t even have to travel the few blocks to the store when we get tired of waiting. Instead, all we need do is click, without leaving our chair or changing direction as we walk, and we own the asset. We prize it less as a result. With the emergence of eBooks, the same is bound to hold true for literature. (If we should really want to get reflective, we can point to the advent of email as a first on-demand step that devalued letters, and now even email itself is losing its luster, as “instant” messaging and 140-character “tweets” are making complete sentences and words worthless.)
In all these examples, I think we have the same phenomenon in multiple manifestations: That which is too easily available becomes less dear. Really, any teenager knows this.
“Tell him I’m not home,” or, “Tell her to leave a message,” are sound business practices applied at a most elemental level, from which not only the phone call’s recipient (in this example analogous to the vendor) but, after an initial disappointment, also the caller (or consumer) benefits: because the product’s value appreciates. To be perfectly clear: this discussion is not one of price, but of value… which eventually justifies a price… which has been approaching zero.
It is thus fascinating to observe a massive industry structure tending in a direction that smart teenagers would avoid: instant and universal access. It’s happened in music, it’s happened in print, it’s happening in video, and it’s now also happening in books. Following the net neutrality debate, it seems (on another level) it is about to happen in infrastructure and in distribution. Subject for next column.
(2 b cont. Pls ck bk.)
