Goodbye Scarcity and Hello Abundance: An Issue of Content

The Long Trail by Chris Anderson makes known that there is a content issue. Get this, our local theaters, radio and TV networks are all affected by physical and earthbound economics. Economics, yes that old chestnut, plays a big part in this. The equation is that old school traditional economics (based in the physical market) affects content in a different way that say, the way online economics does. You see, there content is of the abundance online, yet in the non-online world products and services are made profitable by scarcity. Plus, online content can afford to be of a 'niche' nature whereas in the physical market you better make content mainstream and here’s why:


Problem #1: Involves local audiences. A good example that shows this are theaters. So, an average movie theater will not show a film unless it can attract at least 1,500 people over a two-week run.

In other words, all retailers (and it's not just theater venues) will
carry only content that can generate sufficient demand to earn its
keep.

Problem #2: Involves physical space issues. A good example that shows this limitation are Radio and TV networks. These networks struggle with physical space issues because the radio spectrum can carry only so many stations and a coaxial cable so many TV channels.

Basically networks (Radio stations and TV stations) are only put up in
geographic locations wherein there is a large audience and to keep
these existing audiences and attract new ones the content that these
networks show must be of a popularized (mainstream) caliber.

In other words, while 'earthly' theaters, TV and radio networks assume what content to make available online businesses like Amazon are turning us into the selectors of content as they make available to us all sorts of content. The World Wide Web has no space issues and can thus afford to carry substantial amounts of content (no book shelf limitations). Whereas real life and its physicality creates a lame supply and demand match the virtual leaves us up to our own devices as we hunt for information and find are not so mainstream niches.