Trading, not eating

Repeating the old story:

There was a speculative mania in sardines. A shortage pushed up prices, and before long there was an enthusiastic trade in tinned sardines. Then one day a buyer decided to open a can and eat a sardine or two. He got food poisoning and complained to the seller. The seller responded: “Why would you open the can? These are not eating sardines, they are trading sardines.”

The digital era allows a much wider range of items to serve solely as trading tokens. I’ve noticed for a long time that most of the “reads” of this blog are mere references used in some kind of SEO clickfarming operation. In other words, this is a trading blog, not a reading blog. The vast majority of non-superstar writing on the web falls into the same category.

AI takes the trading and securitization to a new level. Even superstar books and live human superstar actors are turned into abstract references, chopped up, mixed together, and parceled out as tradable and salable entities.

Before digital, securitizing a text was far more costly. A publisher had to buy the copyright from the author, pay for materials and wages to physically print the text on paper, then physically send out the copies to customers. Broadcasting didn’t need paper and ink but still required transmitters, announcers, engineers, FCC licensing, and real estate to hold the antenna. More overhead (heh) than printing.