The twin forces of scarcity & abundance part 2
Non-rival goods
… continued from part 1
Abundance rears its complex head when it comes to non-rival goods. These are goods where it’s not easy to segregate my enjoyment of a good from another person’s enjoyment of it and the other person’s enjoyment of that good does not diminish my enjoyment of it.
Digital information is a good example. As those who’ve suffered a social media faux pas can attest, once that embarrassing photo has been shared, it’s impossible to un-share it. The person who inadvertently shared the photo still has enjoyment of the photo and so do the 100,000 friends of friends of friends who got copies over the internet.
After all, digital information at its bottom line is nothing but a pattern of 1’s and 0’s encoded and transmitted by electromagnetic impulses. It is easy and cheap to make and transport perfect copies. Actually, the internet runs by copying digital goods, slicing them into packets, sending them over the wire or the air then re-assembling them at the receiving end.
Knowledge is another good example. If I teach you what I know, I don’t lose that knowledge after you’ve received it. On the contrary, by teaching you what I know, I get a better grasp of my own knowledge. As they say, the best way to really learn something is to teach it.
Another example is know-how where similar to knowledge, if I train you to do something, it doesn’t take away from me the skills and know-how I’ve imparted to you. It actually adds more know-how in me, namely the know-how of teaching and training.
Marginal ups & downs
Most rival goods have diminishing marginal returns. The additional benefit I get from consuming an additional unit of a good gets lesser and lesser the more units of that good I consume.
For example, the first scoop of gelato I eat might be mighty delicious. The second, the third, fourth not so. The tenth or more might even make me sick. At that point the good turns into a bad.
Non-rival goods like know-how on the other hand can have increasing marginal returns. The more I know how to do something, the more I enjoy it, the more I want to do it more.
For example, when I first learn to play the guitar, my enjoyment starts at a low because I’m still learning the scales. Then the more time I spend playing the better I get at it, the better enjoyment I get out of playing. The better skills I have, the more I want to play an ever increasing complexity of riffs.
Consumption vs practice, pleasure vs enjoyment
Here’s the rub. While, eating gelato is more of a consumption, playing a guitar is more of a practice.
In consumption, the thing consumed diminishes the more it is consumed. In practice, the practitioner and the practice itself becomes more, the more the practitioner practices.
Consumption brings pleasure and pleasure is finite. Just think of the Roman patricians who have to force themselves to vomit in their vain attempt to extend the pleasure of eating.
Practice brings enjoyment. When I practice at my highest level, I am in the joy of the moment. There is nothing else but the practice. There is no time, there is no me, there is not the noisy chatter of the mind. I am just in the abundance of flow. The friction of scarcity ceases to exist in that moment. Because enjoyment comes moment by moment, it can be infinite, — extended indefinitely one moment at a time.
You could say: increased consumption creates scarcity, increased practice creates abundance.
… continue to part 3
