The End of Consumption in Information Society

Abstract

When used in the context of the so-called “e-economy,” the term “consumption” is essentially an oxymoron which only serves to block the view of crucial developments. For the paradigmatic goods of trade in the Internet — information, be it in the form of text, multimedia data, or software — are precisely not consumed when downloaded from the Net. On the Internet, participation in information replaces consumption of finite resources. This, however, makes the traditional rules of exchange obsolete; they all used to be based upon the elementary pattern of distribution of finite, if not scarce, resources (material, as well as time) that change hands or else are consumed for the benefit of the counterpart. The transformation from industrial society to information society is also the transformation from consumer society to participation society.

Dawn of light, lying between a silence and sold sources JON ANDERSON, Tales from Topographic Oceans