Pink Floyd confused about musc?
So, at least according to some sites, Nick Mason has stated that U2 releasing their most recent album for free ‘devalues music’. I think Mr. Mason is confused about value.
(Yes, this is part of a recurring series on the topic of value, which I think is a important topic for us all to understand if we want to have a amazing future instead of a dystopian one)
There are some things that become more valuable the more of them are wandering around in the world. A single fax machine, a single computer, not particularly valuable. Two fax machines, two computers, and now you have a network. Add more fax machines or computers, and you’re making them more valuable because more people can use them to get things done.
Music and movies and books are very similar. They form a cultural rosetta stone that can assist us in communicating with each other. They often transcend the notes and words they are made of to capture emotion and spirit and story in ways that aid communication. So, the more copies of a song are out there, the more people have been exposed to it, the *more* valuable it is.
Thinking that scarcity and price define value is a cognitive distortion that can lead to a number of unhappy things. While the free market economy makes it *appear* that scarcity means value, it is a illusion. It might raise the price, but it doesn’t make the whatever the scarce object is able to do any more or be any more, except for the few sick people who get pleasure from knowing they can have something no one else can have.