"Scarcity can be hard to find. "
I'm totally stealing that...
I miss scarcity
This is not a complaint. Or, if it is a complaint, it's half-aimed at me. Mostly this is a reflection.
In the old days, I got to know music really well -- in great detail, sonically, musically, reading all the credits, the liner notes, etc. A friend would have an album I didn't, so I'd go to his house to listen. We'd talk about the music. We'd talk about how album sides hung together or didn't. We were thrilled by double albums.
Now, a torrent of information is everywhere. I listen alone, often to a single song, often not listening to anything over and over again.
You will tell me, "That's your choice." I'd half agree. It's like agreeing that "It's my choice not to live off the electrical grid."
As I read and teach about AI, I am learning that our tools often prioritize speed and information glut. It seems, initially, like a cornucopia but it becomes a wash of "content." I must admit, I'm losing my talent for managing all this content, and I'm losing my love for it. And it's making me into a different person, somewhat, and I am not so sure I want to be that person. End of reflection.
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Scarcity can be hard to find indeed, but we can create an environment where it sill exist ... (less phone play,less TV,less computer, more walk in Nature and more paper books reading).. Scarcity can be born again ...We can recreate it ... We can become ourselves the humanity which is missing in this world...
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Interesting question. I’m wondering mostly about the domination of one form of attention over another, without sufficient awareness of the change. @soix Happy New Year to you, too!
Agreed. Very good piece on this, here. Gift article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/opinion/tech-free-college-spaces.html?unlocked_article_code=1.BFA.--Kt.v3z0TYyh7kPG&smid=url-share |
@hilde45 , Very interesting, thank you for sharing. An interesting idea I think would be 'offline' Summer camps.
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Scarcity vs Abundance – My Take I get the nostalgia for scarcity. When music was scarce, it was chosen, paid for, lived with, and often mastered as a finished work. But it’s worth separating romance from economics, because streaming didn’t just change how we listen—it fundamentally rewired the business. For most of recorded history, music was sold as an object (LPs, CDs). Revenue came upfront, which funded studios, long sessions, musicians, producers, and albums designed to be listened to front-to-back. Streaming flipped that model entirely. Music is now monetized by attention, not ownership. Artists get paid fractions of a cent per play, so volume, frequency, and algorithmic retention matter more than depth or dynamics. That economic reality inevitably shapes the music itself—shorter tracks, faster hooks, heavier compression, and a flood of content optimized for earbuds and playlists. From an audiophile perspective, this explains a lot of what we hear today. Much modern music isn’t bad—it’s simply not produced with resolving systems, rooms, or long-form listening in mind. Dynamics, space, and timbral nuance aren’t rewarded by the current model. Consistency and immediacy are. But here’s the flip side: abundance hasn’t killed quality—it’s just made it optional and harder to find. Incredible recordings still exist in jazz, classical, indie, and even modern pop—but they’re no longer curated for us by labels or radio. Discovery is now our responsibility. So what can an audiophile who values quality do? • Use streaming for discovery, not judgment • Curate a smaller, intentional library of great recordings • Support artists and labels that care about sound (buy LPs, hi-res downloads, box sets) • Embrace physical media as a filter—vinyl especially rewards commitment and quality • Stop expecting every new release to justify a reference system Ironically, streaming may be what saved high-end listening. It handles convenience and infinite choice, while physical media has become the home of intention, dynamics, artwork, and sound quality. Scarcity didn’t disappear—it just moved. In short: abundance isn’t the enemy. Uncurated listening is. And if AI can help us sort, filter and curate so much the better. Happy listening. |
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