Chapter 2

“AMZN: CustomFlix and Amazon.com Launch CD on Demand Service” Sept.19/06
[http://technology-news-earnings.blogspot.com/2006/09/amzn-customflix-and-amazoncom-launch.html]

CustomFlix is a subsidiary owned by Amazon.com, Inc. It’s just like their DVD on Demand service but instead of movies they offer music from independent musicians, artists, and labels. Their goal is to cater to the needs of the independent musician community as well as specific labels that want them to distribute their music. This is a relatively new way to share this type of music to millions of worldwide Amazon.com customers. It is actually quite a clever system because it benefits the suppliers as well. They use a manufacture-on-demand approach that permits the musicians and labels to have a distribution method that’s less expensive and still keep the same flexibility over their content. CustomFlix also provides a Future-Proof Archive service that supports more advanced formats. Even support for HD-DVD and Blu-ray have already been announced. All in all, it really is a win-win situation.

Relationship to Ch.2

As long as there is some kind of demand for a product or service, it’s almost certain that there will be supply. In this case, Amazon.com believes that there is sufficient demand to provide a service. Although the market might not be very big, it is still possible to make a profit. However, I think the intentions of the independent musicians are more to have people just listening to them rather than being paid a specific amount of money.

If demand ever goes up, and at this point it’s still hard to say, I don’t think the system of how the CDs are supplied would change because it would be counter-productive to the aim of the service. If the suppliers were anything other than independent musicians, prices would increase along with demand in a heartbeat. Corporations wouldn’t let something silly like ideals and individuality get in the way of their sales. And as far as elasticity goes, CustomFlix is without a doubt inelastic. Sure, it’s cheap, but it’s also completely unnecessary and there are more than a few substitutes. The best way to go about it is probably to try all of them and stick with the one you like the most.

Chapter 1

“Scarcity, Mother of Invention”, the New York Times Aug. 10/06
[http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/10/opinion/edsass.php]

This is an intriguing article I happened upon about the pitfalls of scarcity. It makes note of the inevitabilities of scarcity and how, throughout history, it has forced our hand to innovate or be innovative out of necessity. Sometimes the change can be something small, like migrating to a place with an abundance of natural resources when the existence of a village is in jeopardy because trees around it have been depleted, and sometimes can be monumental. Back in the 12th century, bronze was the common metal and iron was very much esteemed. However, when the resource of tin to make bronze was shrinking, a technological revolution occurred. Artisans learned to extract iron from iron-rich materials by heating it with charcoal (smelting). The price of iron fell by a factor of 80,000 over 1200 years. This was known as the beginning of the Iron Age.

Relationship to Ch.1

Humans are lucky. We have been fortunate in that every time we’ve been cornered (metaphorically speaking), we have found a way out of it. That is to say, we’ve been creative and invented something new or discovered a more favourable alternative to avoid disaster. In the world right now, this “disaster” would be the scarcity of fossil fuels. Although all natural resources are generally limited in quantity, fossil fuels deserve more paying attention to. The consumption of oil is being used at an unprecedented rate and currently, not enough is being done about it. History exists so we can learn from it; economics exists so we can better the world by it (idealistically at least). The fact is that earth’s fossil fuels are gradually and surely depleting. Something must be done the remedy this problem. Be it an alternative or completely new sustainable source or energy, it best be soon. People have grown far too dependent on fossil fuels. We need to learn from history and take action now. Scarcity leads to insufficiency, and insufficiency will lead to catastrophe. “If we use up, or more realistically, greatly deplete, the resources of this earth, we have no place to go.”