Information is the product (part 2).
My head has cleared slightly, so I thought I’d try to advance the ball on yesterday’s half-a-thought. I can’t promise a full thought by the end of the post but I think I can at least get closer. However, if you’re expecting anything remotely practical or useful, you may want to just move on.
I want to start with a revision to the chart that I posted yesterday:
One of the main things that bothered me about the idea that information is where the value lies is that it’s pretty clearly not true in a wide variety of cases. What the Internet has proven is that almost all kinds of information are freely available and that’s probably not going to change. Therefore while some kinds of information still cost money, most kinds of information including instructions on how to build stuff, instructions on how to program stuff, software and instructions on how to do stuff can now be found for free. (This covers all four of my information types above.)
Transformation on information (or turning information into a product/service) still costs money by and large, but there too, it’s clear the trend is towards free. Except for things like iTunes and Netflix, most web services are completely free, and this exerts pricing pressure upon products both digital and analogue. Why pay for packaged software if I can use a web-service for free? Why buy a car when I can use one whenever I want for less? This trend is already well underway and by and large we’re benefiting.
What 3D-printing, or on-demand-manufacturing adds to the equation is yet more downward pressure on the price of things. Because if I, as the consumer, own or have access to the means of production for a variety of different products, and information about how to create those products is also free then what exactly am I paying for? Of course there are a huge number of products which will never be able to be manufactured in the home but I think that what’s happened to the content or media industry is in someways analogous to what could happen in manufacturing industries. At the very least, I can see the world splitting into two classes of products. Those which can be “manufactured” in the home which I will still use as products and those that can’t be manufactured at home which I may simply choose to consume as services instead.
(On a side note, I also think 3D printing will lead to the creation of temporary products. Things like spare keys, cutlery, or various tools which I use once in a while but which I don’t really need to store.)
Since nothing can ever be truly free, this means businesses will eventually need to find new ways to draw value from the system to make money. The first, and simplest, way that this can happen is that businesses will be able to charge for offering better information/instructions or for better manufacturing/transformation than you can get for free. Secondly, there will always be a market for businesses that do things that people don’t want to do for themselves.
However (and perhaps this is my one thought), I begin to think that there may be an entirely new class of business that will emerge. A class of business that doesn’t make money by selling or doing things but that makes money in an entirely new and unexpected way. Do you think I’ve gone to far afield on this one?