A favourite quote by Alvin Toffler: Is it more important to be imaginative and insightful then to be one hundred percent right?!?

“In dealing with the future, at least for the purposes at hand, it is more important to be imaginative and insightful then to be one hundred percent right.  Theories do not have to be right to be enormously useful”  Alvin Toffler - Future Shock - 1970

Comments

[Steve Pasek]

I have read Toffler's Future Shock, as well as Third Wave, and A) out of context this quote can be easily misinterpreted; B) out of context this quote would support idiotic ideas like Supply Side Economics, which has proven disastrous and has required vast amounts of energy and capital to repair the damage it has caused. Ideas have consequences, and incorrect theories have bad ones directly proportional to how incorrect that they are.

In context, Toffler's talking about the process of innovation, not about the irrelevance of being correct in your theory. Yes, it is useful to create iterations of theories for explanation or extrapolation of phenomena in order to fully explore the meme, but in order to be complete, a theory must have some basis in empirical evidence. It is also important to realize that propagating half-baked theories (especially those which are simplistic in scope) can do more harm than good, and prevent the formation of a useful paradigm that furthers the discussion in a productive way.

It's of course obvious in many political contexts, but I find this to also be true in the "feels like free" meme, which oversimplifies to the point of absurdity. Yeah, David Bowie can afford to propagate these ideas, since A) David Bowie will always reap benefits from vast free distribution, since he already has a multitude of established paid channels that will benefit from ancillary exposure; B) He, like Radiohead and many others, benefited greatly from for-profit channels that took years to build and required a wide catalog in order to subsidize development of their early careers, which would not be possible for unestablished artists without the subsidy of established artists.

I'm not entirely certain that "feels like free" isn't the Supply Side Economics of the music industry, and as such could create damage proportional to its wrongness within the entire music economy, hollowing out a system that (barely) works in favor of one that doesn't work at all.

It took years of trial and error to develop the existing systems that supported the music industry in good stead for a long time, and to suggest that its total destruction is the only alternative is ludicrous. In fact, the same ubiquity that makes "feels like free" possible also could make the existing systems more equitable and eliminate some of the middlemen, passing more of the profits along to the creators (for example, there really isn't any need for ASCAP / BMI staff any more, just a common protocol for use among music licensors, and a requirement that all media use that protocol). The real-world analog, I suppose is free-agency in baseball, which has allowed more successful players to reap benefits proportional to their success, while still requiring them to "pay their dues" for a few years within a system designed to provide enough profit to the team owners that they still invest in unproven players (which in turn creates a competitive-replacement system that provides an upper bound on the price that top-tier players can charge).

Whether "feels like free" is 100% correct or only 10% correct is not the pertinent judgment of its value. The pertinent factor, and in my opinion the only one, is whether or not it is SUSTAINABLE. My opinion is that it is only sustainable for a much smaller universe of creators than older, and perhaps less equitable, systems, due to the currently capital-intensive nature of music promotion and production -- which of course is going up, not down, if you want to insist that touring is the primary revenue stream now (gasoline prices will continue to rise for the foreseeable future).

If all music is free or even feels like it (which under current payout advertising models results in infinitessimal market shares and infinitessimal payouts), it would appear that the investment required to build a truly profitable music career would be nearly impossible, at least under any currently-existing model, since scarcity builds value and the model you're promoting essentially reduces all music to a commodity in an inelastic market, like grain. (We can, of course, discuss what the analog to ethanol-impacting-grain-markets would be in music).

Sorry to get all John Stuart Mill on you, but the value of theories is directly proportional to their ultimate utility in finding models for their object. I think that the mere existence of systems built upon a theory does not prove its utility, the success of that system in attaining stasis and sustainability does. People will pay for something that they feel has value, but I am afraid that this theory is giving shelter to those who want to believe that creative product has no intrinsic value (above and beyond the capital costs mentioned above).

I find your essays quite interesting as a spur to discussion and a way of restructuring ideas, but rest assured that in the end all that matters is practical applications of theory, or all you have is a perpetual motion machine.

[Gerd Leonhard]

Steve, yes, I concur that ideas indeed have consequences and therefore need to be carefully thought-out, and the Toffler quote was too much out of context (I have therefore changed the post title ;). But I really disagree when you say: "It took years of trial and error to develop the existing systems that supported the music industry in good stead for a long time..." Absent of collective licensing (Ascap BMI etc) where this holds true and which I support 100% IF it continues to evolve and provide real value, the music industry has clearly NOT had a system that 'supports everyone in good stead' as you say. How can a system that systematically depletes musicians and writers from their livelihood if they are not in that top 0.5% that 'makes it', be called fair? The productization of music has led us to an absurd point where many creators are expecting to make money simply by the way of 'ownership' and asserting their exclusive rights to allow a copy. How will that work out in the future when the entire Net is a huge, auto-on copy-machine? Clearly, the music industry we have had up to date - based on monopolies / cartels, collusion, non-transparency, mass-marketing and the utter lack of choices - cannot be something we would want to aspire to, in the future. As I like to say: the potential evils of an open, un-controlled system will always pale compared to those of a closed, controlled system. And yes - the details are tough to figure out.

Further, please keep in mind that a new, feels like free system of music consumption will be based on an entirely new logic of what used to be called 'advertising' and 'up-selling', and Advertising2.0 is yet to be invented and put to work - but there are 750 Billion USD to spend, so right now this is simply a chicken+the egg problem: once we have the PERMISSION to offer music in this way, these kinds of revenue streams will indeed be there very quickly. Maybe web-video is showing the way: Google does not quite have the huge cash cow with Youtube yet, but you can bet they will, soon.

There are analogies to the open software models here, of course, too (see Benkler, and Tapscott) but... another time.

Steve, as to your critique on my way of working: all of this is all work-in-progress, and there are many many more people involved than just me. My 'ideas' and visions are developing with their input, and vice versa, and yes - if I had a full-time mission to develop the entire logic and its realization that would be great, but... alas I am just a blogger and speaker, so ... bear with me until it's 100% conclusive ;)