The Twilight of the Information Middlemen
(nytimes.com) Information is both invaluable and impossible to value. Historically, the main way around this problem has been to pack the results of intellectual or creative effort into something tangible that can be priced and sold: a book, a seat in a theater, an hour of an expert's time. Technology causes economic chaos when it disrupts this packaging plan, as is now happening in the music industry. Ten years ago, if you wanted to play a song, you had to buy a CD or a tape. Now, thanks to downloaded MP3 files, you don't - and the chaos is all the worse because the same young audience that would otherwise be buying the most CD's is the quickest to adopt MP3's. Publishers must shudder as they contemplate the distant but inevitable day when "electronic paper" does the same to them, making downloaded files as convenient to read as ordinary books, magazines and newspapers are today. But while lawyers and business officials worry about technology's effects on who will be paid, and how, for their creative efforts, the Internet's most fascinating impact has been on those who have decided not to charge for their work. → Full Story