Business models are changing
I love this piece by Clay Shirky in which he describes why the "newspaper" business-model is failing. A very thoughtful piece that I think carries directly over to the "telephone" and "television" business models. Click HERE for his article.
He lays out the "unthinkable scenario" for newspapers;
The unthinkable scenario unfolded something like this: The ability to share content wouldn’t shrink, it would grow. Walled gardens would prove unpopular. Digital advertising would reduce inefficiencies, and therefore profits. Dislike of micropayments would prevent widespread use. People would resist being educated to act against their own desires. Old habits of advertisers and readers would not transfer online. Even ferocious litigation would be inadequate to constrain massive, sustained law-breaking. (Prohibition redux.) Hardware and software vendors would not regard copyright holders as allies, nor would they regard customers as enemies. DRM’s requirement that the attacker be allowed to decode the content would be an insuperable flaw. And, per Thompson, suing people who love something so much they want to share it would piss them off.
Then goes on to point out how the rational folks who saw this coming were treated;
Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors.
That's how I often feel I've been treated by folks in the telephone and cable-TV industry -- "Mike, oh he's just a whacko." For exactly the same reaon -- there's an Unthinkable Scenario for telephone and television as well. My guess is that they're both likely to be gone in 10 years and the whole shebang will just be bits, delivered via the Internet. There are differences (there is a natural monopoly at work in the fast pipes), but his article has lots of observations that ring true for me.
Want to see my thoughts on how we can move more quickly to the Unthinkable Scenario for telephone and cable? Click HERE. It's a little screed I put together called "Switch to Winners." Monopolistic consumer behavior, that's a way to do it.
