Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Privacy as a commodity

I've been listening to KUCO lately, the classical station.  I like the music, but I also like the little history lessons that they throw in between songs.  So many of the great composers seem to have spent some time being employed in the courts of royalty.  

It got me to thinking about how music is such a commodity today, everyone has access to almost any kind of music instantly with little or no cost.  In the past only Kings could afford music on demand, and this came at great expense.  The peasants had to settle for what they could come up with on their own, and anything with any level of orchestration and instrumentation had to be heard at Church or at a state function.  

This is what the free market and technology does.  It takes the things that are desired by all but only attainable by the rich and privileged and makes them available to everyone.  Music, books, food out of season, travel, hygiene, entertainment; all of these things are now commodities to all but the very poorest of people, but they used to be the exclusive property of royalty.  

Look at what the "royals" of today enjoy that is out of the reach of the masses, and you can bet that technology and industry is trending to equalize that disparity.  I predict that the next luxury soon to be commoditized by technology and the marketplace will be on-demand personal privacy.

0 comments: