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.
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...
|
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.
|
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. |
I did not knew at 18 what Schopenhauwer wrote about reading most important fact : You must not read almost all books but only the most important and deep one... Unreading matter way more than reading...
Without knowing it i pushed this principle to its limits... Not only i did not read most very well known books...( I never read Steven Pinker guess why ? But i bought the "fractales" book in French of then unknown Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975 writing in French before everyone can even know him... And i can gave many many others exemples of not picking known well received new writers in the like of Pinker )... I applied this principle to music...Un-hear anything which only fill silence without moving my mind and heart especially from most radio station (i discovered Sun Ra on one and kept his name in my mind a long time before rediscovering him )... I listened to Mompou or Schutz or Josquin Des Prez not to pop or rock... I listened sitar or sarangi not so much electrical guitar (save nowadays i like grant Green and Wes Montgomery etc ) Scarcity in selecting books in a books crowded public library dont means owning few books... at 28 my personal library cost half the price of a house, i computed it... Scarcity may be the key to abundance...like few seeds can grow a forest... A Genius book well picked drive you (in the notes and bibliography) to a books forest...Mandelbrot drive me to Sierpinski works in set theory etc .... As Bach can drive you to Scarlatti then to Chopin and Liszt and to Scriabin or jazz as he did to me...
«The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.» A. Schopenhauer
«Specific trash need specific trash bin like an idea need specific neuron path»-- Anonymus educated garbage collector reading a neurology trashed book
« Bob you are too snob» -- Groucho Marx
|
