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Economy of Abundance

Friday, October 27, 2006

A wonderful power point presentation from Anderson's Long Tail, titled "Economy of Abundance" is now available on line. There is a good summary from David Hornik in his blog:
The same businesses that are the poster children for the Long Tail, are the poster children for the Economy of Abundance. And the same businesses that are the victims of the Long Tail are the poster children for the Economy of Scarcity. With bandwidth and storage approaching free, iTunes can offer three million songs (P2P offers nine million). In contrast, with limited shelf space, Tower Records can only offer fifty- or sixty-thousand tracks. The end result, consumer choose abundance over scarcity (something for everyone) -- Tower Records gets liquidated while iTunes grows dramatically. Television is undergoing a similar transformation, from scarcity to abundance. TV initially consisted of only the major networks. Consumers were limited to 3 choices in any given time slot. With cable the number of channels was dramatically increased and a broader range of content became available (Food Channel, Discovery Channel, ESPN, CNN, etc.). To many, 250 channels may constitute sufficient abundance as to approach infinite choice in their minds. But the true television of abundance is YouTube. With unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage, television is subject to microprogramming -- millions of shows, viewable on demand at any time. Now not only should NBC be worried, so too should be Comcast.
Anderson did not take into account molecular manufacturing in his presentation. I have the feeling that full scale abundancy will-- for the time being-- be only availabe to non-physical goods. The cost for sharing files in P2P is of course, almost zero (there is of course the time costs and therefore opportunity costs being incurred). E-books, songs, videos, you can sell it this way. But that is not the case when you sell vegetables through the internet. There are still costs thay you will have to pay, you need to grow it first, then maybe sell it at e-bay. Consider other commodities such as water. Do you really think there is going to be a long tail for water companies? Nope, water market is always monopolistic.

Those aspects, Anderson did not consider. But, those scarcities may not last long. Thus, there could be a long tail too for water or plants, not the real water or plants, but programs containing molecular structure of water or plants. This is what we call, the nanotech's economy of abundance.

I am taking this opportunity to point out that futurist and nanotech expert had actually come up with the idea of abundance, but seen from the nano perspective and not from the economical and marketing perspective.

Abundant economy will revolutionarize the Law. Creative Commons and EFF movements is a reflection of this, but it is not likely that the developments are limited into those areas. The trend of the future law will follow the long tail trends: decentralized, personalized, fast, consumer-dictated, open, shared, highly networked. In Burgess words:
In a system based on scarcity, those holding the levers of production will not easily give them up. In domestic and international markets based on scarcity, the function and responsibility of directors and officers is to maximize shareholder value—at nearly any cost that does not fall afoul of laws, or at least not so far afoul that the penalties exceed the financial gain resulting from illegal actions.

So, what kind of culture do we want? In a system of plenty, will we continue to keep score by maintaining the preponderance of benefits inside corporate walls and coffers? Will we continue to stifle the spread of benefits through secrecy and protectionism? Unless something changes, history suggests that laws, regulations, and protections will continue to be designed for the exact purpose of directing all profits and virtually all of the benefits to shareholders.
Will corporation remained existed? I have a feeling that the trends toward "limited liability" will be reduced. Limited liability has been quite abusive in that it escapes real liability and hide it behind corporate walls. There is of course a doctrine of lifting the corporate veil, but it doesnt really work if you can hire good lawyers. So I think there is going to be a shift from limited liability to common but differentiated liability. Next question, will multi-national corporations (MNC) ceased to exist? Their number of employees will shrink of course, but it isn't likely that they ceased to exist. They will evolve, maybe as a completely new entity. I must remind you to Google. That, is the prototype of future MNC. And what does google have in mind? Stakeholder, not shareholder. Participation, not centralization. Opennes. Boldness in buying You Tube with the risk for violating multiple copyright laws. The world is changing and the future law must accomodate this.

 

The Google Government?

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

I encourage you to read NYT's article titled "We're Google, so sue us":
Many of the lawsuits Google is facing carry little weight. Yet it has a vested interest in fighting all of them, even those of questionable merit, and seeing that they are resolved quickly. In part, this is because any lawsuit that reaches the discovery, the pretrial fact-finding phase, poses the danger of revealing too much about Google’s proprietary technology. Google also has an interest in establishing a solid body of legal interpretation in its favor.

Along with YouTube’s 34 million viewers, Google will inherit a lawsuit filed last summer against the company. Robert Tur, who owns a video from the 1992 riots in Los Angeles that shows a trucker being beaten by rioters, is suing YouTube, accusing it of copyright infringement.
Hmm, I wonder what it's going to look like. The court decisions will certainly revolutionarize copyright laws.

 

How TSCA operates in practice

Monday, October 23, 2006

As previously discussed, the TSCA is used to cover nanotechnology products. This is how it may actually work in practice:
In August, BNA (Bureau of National Affairs) reported in its Daily Environment Report that it had asked EPA to explain the agency's review of nanoscale chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) following a notice in the Federal Register that an un-named company would begin manufacturing siloxane-coated alumina nanoparticles. According to EPA officials, only one nano-chemical reviewed by the agency exhibited novel properties of concern to regulators.
That means, nanoproducts may not be perfectly "filtered" through TSCA review. An ETC member said:
"The government hasn't even agreed on standards for measuring or otherwise characterizing nanoparticles and the EPA has neither the tools nor the expertise to evaluate them. Nanotech companies are telling patent examiners and venture capitalists that they are taking advantage of nanoscale, quantum effects to create novel materials while telling the EPA that these chemicals are just the same-old, same-old."
I am not sure on what he meant by quantum effect. But, it signifies that nanoproduct could be masked as "the same old chemicals". As far as I know TSCA does not make any nano-distinction. It's a chemical regulation after all:
EPA's Jim Alwood told ETC Group that the agency doesn't keep a running tab on whether or not chemicals are manufactured on the nanoscale, making it very difficult to estimate how many nanoscale chemicals are in production.
And, it doesn't seem that they are taking precautionary approach:
Groundless groundwater experimentation: In addition to paving the way for companies to produce and commercialize nanoscale chemicals, EPA is actively contributing to the release of engineered nanomaterials in the environment. In January, the agency announced a plan to clean up the Nease Chemical Superfund site in the state of Ohio by injecting "nanoscale zero-valent iron" (NZVI) into the groundwater.

 

Privacy is only for the rich?

Saturday, October 21, 2006

I call it "privacy gap":
A growing "privacy gap" is the third problem. In the future, privacy is going to be expensive. You can protect an RFID tag, for example, by using passwords to make access difficult. You can do something similar with satellite imagery. If you do not want your roof or swimming pool to be photographed, you need to shield them, but it will cost you money. This means privacy will eventually belong only to the wealthy.
Privacy is eroding, that is undeniable. But, there will still be privacy for those who can afford it. The law cannot prevent people from shielding their private lives if they are able to do so. But for those with no financial capabilities, then it is not the obligation of the state to provide them with privacy.

As privacy is ineffective, inefficient, expensive and has the potential to create social gap, shall we deny privacy at all and exchange it with transparency instead?

(Hat Tip to Kerry B Collison)

 

Nano in food

Friday, October 20, 2006

I found good examples on the application of nano(scale)technology in foods:
Campylobacter, for example, is a bacterium that does not harm chickens but causes illness in human beings and even death in the vulnerable. A nanoparticle to go into chicken feed is being developed at Clemson University, South Carolina, which would latch on to Campylobacter, ensuring that it is excreted by chickens, so making the bird safer to eat.

Another potential use of nanotechnology directly in food is to use it to improve emulsification, meaning that products such as mayonnaise don’t separate out even if they have a low-fat content.
And in packaging technology:
Nanoscale silica spheres filled with molecules of a fluorescent dye have been developed to go into meat packaging, where they will detect the presence of the deadly E. coli 0157 bacteria. When contact is made, the spheres literally light up, resulting in a change in packaging colour.

Nanomaterials added to PVC films can also prevent spoilage by UV light.

And the problems are?:

Well, we don't know what the exact effects are to health and we don't know how to regulate if we don't know what the exact effects are.

So what is the current approach?:

Do research and regulate on a case-by-case basis.

 

Combating regulatory inefficiency

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

I was interested in reading the first page of a consultancy group:

A CONSULTING FIRM ESTABLISHED TO CONTROL THE SPIRALING COSTS AND INEFFICIENCIES ENCOUNTERED BY CLIENTS SEEKING APPROVALS TO MARKET CHEMICALS, PRODUCTS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY, NANOTECHNOLOGY, AND MEDICAL DEVICE PRODUCTS. THE ACTA GROUP MANAGES PRODUCTS FROM CONCEPT TO APPROVAL, UTILIZING THE SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE OF PROFESSIONALS WHO HAVE WORKED IN THE SPECIFIC PRODUCT AREAS IN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY.

It seems that regulatory consultancy is a thriving business in chemical, biotech, cosmetics and soon, the nanotechnology sector. The group has a quite interesting links compiling nanotechnology regulations here, but too bad they are locked with passwords :)

 

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Long-tailing Nanotechnology?

Monday, October 16, 2006

CRB wrote a very inspiring review of the Long Tail in her blog:
Chris Anderson, in his interesting book, The Long Tail, says: “When the tools of production are available to everyone, everyone becomes a producer.” He’s talking in the context of the explosion in computer technology and internet access to software that allows ordinary people to create videos, music, books, and blogs on every conceivable topic, but the thought is an important one in other contexts as well.
If nanofactory is available for everyone, will everyone becomes a producer? Could be, but that may not necessarily means that there will be no majority producer who controlled the market. There will still be trends and hits, but would it mean that the tail becomes longer?