article: when stuff that can easily be copied is worthless, only stuff that isn't easily copied can sell. Question: Well, what can't be copied?
Everything can be copied, always. The only difference is quality. My photocopied textbook looks crappy and may have pages missing, so it's in my interest to buy the actual book. My cheap knockoff made-in-china hammer is only partially embedded into the handle which could fall apart and hit my toes, so it's in my interest to buy a better made-in-china hammer. My fake italian designer glass coffee table is 2mm thinner than the real glass table, and my designer friends will pick up on that and make fun of me, so it's in my interest to buy the real thing.
It's also relative: how much do I value 1 missed assignment question, or a bruised toe, or pretentious artsy friends? If I don't value them very much, I will choose the copy.
To make things worse, manufacturers these days produce products that has equal or worse quality than their "competitors", and charge more for it. Gucci watches are pieces of crap whose quality is way worse than $10 watches you can get at the mall. Falling-apart jeans say falling apart is a 'feature' when Old Navy's fall apart just as well. Crappy software makes unreasonable demands when their much less annoying "competitors" offer a better product for "free".....you see the problem?
First and foremost, we are consumers. It is unreasonable and naive to believe that consumers will choose an inferior product for the same price or more. Simple as that.
1. The personal touch (Attention)
2. The unique history
3. Authenticity
4. Atoms*
What we are seeing is a drastic drop in the cost of knowledge and an exponential increase in it's availability.
As physical objects become more fungible, capable of being replaced by functionally identical copies, the aspect that will make one object more valuable than another is it's unique history, the knowledge about it, and the social meaning of that knowledge.
Does the fact that you know that Gucci watches today are crap mean that a Patek Phillipe is more valuable? Does it become important to you to know the history of the workshop that produced the watch? Is a watch that had been pawned by a refugee fleeing the holocaust more valuable because you can point to it and say 'A man bought his life with this.'?
A watch that you commissioned to your own specifications from a master craftsman should be the most valuable of all since the master's shop time is limited, and you needed to know enough about watchmaking to make an intelligent request.
One aspect of the consumer society has always been about the social status and peer approval created from purchases. The ground of status is shifting away from the inherent quality of the goods and towards the knowledge of the relationships embodied by the goods.
* arrangements thereof yes, but unless we get some new physics, the actual elemental material is unique, you can't fax yourself more helium when you are running low.
Everything can be copied, always. The only difference is quality. My photocopied textbook looks crappy and may have pages missing, so it's in my interest to buy the actual book. My cheap knockoff made-in-china hammer is only partially embedded into the handle which could fall apart and hit my toes, so it's in my interest to buy a better made-in-china hammer. My fake italian designer glass coffee table is 2mm thinner than the real glass table, and my designer friends will pick up on that and make fun of me, so it's in my interest to buy the real thing.
It's also relative: how much do I value 1 missed assignment question, or a bruised toe, or pretentious artsy friends? If I don't value them very much, I will choose the copy.
To make things worse, manufacturers these days produce products that has equal or worse quality than their "competitors", and charge more for it. Gucci watches are pieces of crap whose quality is way worse than $10 watches you can get at the mall. Falling-apart jeans say falling apart is a 'feature' when Old Navy's fall apart just as well. Crappy software makes unreasonable demands when their much less annoying "competitors" offer a better product for "free".....you see the problem?
First and foremost, we are consumers. It is unreasonable and naive to believe that consumers will choose an inferior product for the same price or more. Simple as that.