I’ve long followed Mr. Jarvis’ Buzz Machine, and hold him, and his writing, in high regard. He does a nice job tweaking the media traditionalists noses with this piece. He does bring up a point, though, that I felt a need to explore further. While discussing how our culture is shifting from a model of scarcity to one of abundance, he makes an interesting metaphorical mistake: “…like reverse alchemists, they turn abundance into scarcity, gold into lead.” Now, if we think about it, lead is more abundant than gold. However, I assume that he is simply referencing value. I find this deeply revealing, and an exceptionally good metaphor for this brave new world (apologies, Mssr. Huxley). We are taking the scarce, in this case creativity, and making it abundant. Truly turning gold to lead. This takes the main economic model of the creative life and turns it on its head. This internet thing has the power, the potential to deeply revolutionize the way our culture does economics. And that excites me deeply.
Also, I like his referencing to destroying the influence of “priests”, making this new medium a reformation of sorts. But that is another post for another day.