Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
All of the trends you listed are good indications of technological advances that will change the paradigm in one way or another. They are similar to the abundance model in that way, but they are all still limited to physical objects that must be built at some cost, and take up space. The trends you listed would fit these models:
Trends 1 and 2: Decentralized production (of power and goods)
Trends 3 and 4: Personalized physical automation (to go with the personalized electronic automation we already have)
In decentralized production, companies will still be able to sell consumers the equipment and materials needed to produce. It should save consumers money, unless some government/organization enacts some draconian controls over the equipment or materials access. Personalized physical automation will hopefully save time and lives.
Abundance has the potential to save consumers money... or it could become a money sink, taking your money in tiny bits for each thing you buy. Hard to tell which way that will go, and it depends on how products are paid for (an advertising model over abundance could make digital products essentially free, and encourage buying of other products, like the ad model of television).
|
They both lead away from the industrial mass production model, (of which books were the first product) which led the vast majority of people away from the agrarian model. I expect this new model (whatever it will be called later) will provide another quantum leap in abundance.