Creating Market Opportunities
Right now we can see the profitability of some things. So our heads aren’t entirely buried in the sand. But we can only see the profitability of perhaps 10% of things. The profitability of most things is unseen. There are thousands of forums and we can’t see the profitability of any of their threads. There are a gazillion answers (ie Quora) and photos (ie Flickr) and songs (ie Spotify) and articles (ie NY Times) and videos (ie Youtube) on the internet and we can’t see their profitability. We also can’t see the profitability of goods in our country’s public sector or in any country’s public sector. So it’s pretty reasonable to conclude that our heads are 90% below the sand. This means that we only grasp 10% of economic reality. But this small grasp of economic reality is responsible for all our benefit. So entirely removing our heads from the sand would allow us to grasp 100% of economic reality and enjoy that much more benefit. The treasure map would be far more accurate. We’d all clearly see and know that there’s treasure all around us. We’d all clearly see and know what markets are good for. We’d all understand that markets are good for eliminating ignorance of economic reality. We’d all understand that markets are good for illuminating the most valuable paths. We’d all understand that markets are good for epiphytic enlightenment.
Right now the Los Angeles Times (LAT) is not a market. But it could and should be a market. Subscribers should have the option to spend their fees on their favorite content. Once the LAT actually knows the value of its articles, it will be so much easier for it to supply more valuable articles. When it does so then its revenue will increase. With more revenue the LAT will be able to compete more talent away from other organizations. It would be a virtuous cycle of value creation.
But here’s the very very curious thing. Does this virtuous cycle of value creation really depend on subscribers?
In the absence of subscribers… why would people voluntarily pay for articles that they could read for free?
The homepage of the LAT obviously receives the most traffic. The space on this page is theoretically unlimited… but the more scrolling required… the less valuable the space.
So what if the order (relative importance) of articles on the LAT homepage was determined by crowdfunding? Free-riders could still read all the articles… but they wouldn’t have any influence over the order of articles.
It would be beneficial for readers to have the option to filter the articles in order to see the most valuable articles that had been published in the past week, month or year. Also, people would also probably want the option to filter the articles by topic. Then I could easily see the most valuable book reviews that had been published in the past month. And if I thought that one of the reviews should be higher on the list? Then I’d be able to spend my money to try and move it on up. I’d be able to spend my money to improve the order of the reviews.
So what do you think? Are subscribers necessary? Or is the collective desire to bring valuable information to more people’s attention adequate incentive to contribute?
So far I’m the only person who recommended your story. I’m guessing that not very many people have read it… or will read it. Of course this would certainly change if your story was on Medium’s homepage. How much would you be willing to pay to put your story on Medium’s homepage? How much would I be willing to pay to put your story on Medium’s homepage? How much would the crowd be willing to pay to put your story on Medium’s homepage?
And perhaps you’d still have to scroll down quite a bit to find your story on the homepage. But if people filtered by “week” and “economics”… then maybe they wouldn’t have to scroll very much to find your story.
The Invisible Hand (IH) is all about people using their money to bring valuable things to each other’s attention. Unfortunately, there’s a multitude of places and spaces where the IH is missing. This means that the treasure map isn’t showing most of the treasure that exists.
