New financial structures of the internet

Photo by FastFords

A lot of speculation has been going on concerning the new financial structure that the internet will adopt. We've heard a lot about the gift economy.

Some, like Austin, see the gift economy as an unspoken quid pro
quo arrangement where gifts will automatically be reciprocated.

Others, such as Hunt, believe that the gift economy hinges on everyone just doing good deeds and releasing them into the ether in the hopes that the good vibrations will be bounced back.

No one knows what shape the gift economy will take but lots of people are making guesses. My problem with this is that most of the time, they're basing their guesses off of hybrid situations.

Radiohead and their release of In Rainbows sparked endless talk of how profitable the online economy might become.

My problem is this. Radiohead and most of the people who are taking advantage of the new economic possibilities are remnants of the old economy. Radiohead is the product of the old Label system. They are where they are because they were picked up by a mega corporation and marketed, to the exclusion of other bands.

With the weakening of Music Labels and the growing crowd of independent, non-affiliated music, no one coming on to the scene today can expect the kind of exposure that Radiohead had. No one launching an album for free can expect the kind of returns that Radiohead has received.

Radiohead may have jumped on a new distribution model that's rocked the industry, but I feel it's a flash in the pan model. This incarnation of the gift economy cannot, necessarily, sustain itself. It relies too heavily on the vestiges of the last paradigm.
What's coming will be different. It will have a different scale. It will be a different animal. And you will not find the germ of the new system figuring anywhere prominently in the old one.