Outrun Change

Major structural change in the economy is similar to previous round of systemic transition

We are in the middle of a major structural change in the economy that is having radical impact on jobs.

Another superb article describing this transition is What If Middle-Class Jobs Disappear?, by Arnold Kling.

He suggests that the explanation for current high unemployment and turmoil is a major structural change in the whole economy.  A one sentence summary:

The economy is in a state of transition, in which the middle-class jobs that emerged after World War II have begun to decline.

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What does radical change in technology and mass media mean to those of us who are undiscovered, unpublished, or small fry wanting to follow our own path?

Previous post discussed the huge impact from having zero cost to produce and distribute one more item.

On a long-term basis, what does this do?  I think several entire industries of delivering mass content are in serious trouble.  If those industries don’t figure out a new business model, the overwhelming change that is taking place will sink them.

Think about this:

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Q: What happens when the marginal cost of producing and delivering one more item is zero?

A:  The world changes.

Zero marginal cost changes the economics of many things.  Radically.

I’ve commented previously on the issue of zero marginal cost – Reflections on the zero cost and inconsequential time to deliver a 2500 page book.

If you want to get your arms around the radical change that is in progress at this moment, you really should be reading Seth Godin’s blog and books.

I have published three books in hard copy.  I plan to write several more books and will go with electronic format in the future.  May do a few print-on-demand copies but won’t have a big inventory like I did for my first three books.

It will take as much time, energy, and cost to get an e-book ready to go as a hard copy book.  What will change is the hard costs for production.  There was a lot of cost for the hard copies but there will be nothing for e-books.   Since I will be distributing through Amazon and the other online stores, there will be distribution costs but there are costs to do fulfillment myself.  Will have to see if the costs are the same.  For a big outfit who could bring the web sales in-house or who wants to distribute resources for free, the costs would be even lower.

Overall?  Cost will drop radically.  I looked at the hard costs for my three books.  Physical production was about 70% of my total hard costs.

Anyone can take the path I did.  Anyone.

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