Jul 20, 2015

Book Excerpt In The Guardian Today


There's an excerpt of one of the chapters from Over The Top running in today's Guardian. It's about the shifting value of ownership and how streaming services like Netflix and Spotify may be making owning media irrelevant.

I'll give you a tease of the first two chapters and then you can give The Guardian the clicks to read the rest.

One of the most significant changes happening today, something that affects every industry, not just television, is the shifting value of ownership. The idea of ownership is based on the concept of scarcity: if a certain good or service is scarce, it’s of value to own it. But if it’s plentiful, then ownership is of less value. Different cultures place different values on ownership. If you remember your American history, the Native Americans were often confused by the European notion of land ownership, land being open and plentiful on the Great Plains. 
So too with music, TV, and movies these days: when they are available whenever and wherever you want them, the idea of consumer ownership seems pointless. This wasn’t always the case however, and a quick look back can help us understand how we got to where we are today.  

No comments: