reply on: Music Has No Economic Value; Convince Me Otherwise (TDE, Joakim Book) \ stacker news ~BooksAndArticles

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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @denlillaapan OP 5 Dec \ parent \ on: Music Has No Economic Value; Convince Me Otherwise (TDE, Joakim Book) BooksAndArticles

not same.

this part of the article:

As a matter of economic fact, no, they’re not. Since the retirement of the labor theory of value, labor doesn’t have economic value simply because it was expensed. Economic transactions and the property rights we use to guide them are intrinsically related to scarcity. We don’t price or transact oxygen, words, or the recipe for your grandmother’s meat stew — not because they don’t have value (they’re immensely valuable!), but because they don’t have scarcity or rivalrousness. One person’s use of them doesn’t prevent another person from using them.

The restaurant and its production line has scarcity; when I'm occupying a table, another person can't -- the food in my mouth cannot simultaneously be consumed by someone else. Music (in the digital world) is different: much more like recipes and oxygen than steak and restaurant tables

30 sats \ 3 replies \ @itsrealfake 5 Dec

it's hard to compose my thoughts without interjecting some snarky music attitude, so i'm just gonna lean in and get this dig in at the top, in the friendliest possible way:

if you don't think music has value, i pity what i imagine to be an much lower quality experience of life, and i'm grateful that i don't share that opinion

now i've said the thing, and tried to be a little bit funny, while also engaging with (and acknowledging) the emotional nature of the position i've taken in this philosophical discussion, which may not have a right answer.

i think it would be helpful to define "music" for the sake of the discussion. in the meantime, here's this...

via investopedia

maybe you would say something like "music isn't commensurable, only CDs and records are, and therefore the song doesn't have a price".

music creation is a service.

music performance is a service.

music amplification (loudness, fidelity, etc..) are services.

each of those have benefits to individual market participants. it's not so different from V4V.

i'm willing to pay a limited price for recordings of specific songs, not recordings of just any song. this indicates that it's not the recording that's special... it's the song. that price is the economic value of the song.

digitizing something doesn't suddenly remove it's value.. it merely makes it digital & readily duplicable. multiple copies of a file are not the same as the contents & structure & meaning of the file (see also: the timechain)

5 sats \ 2 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 6 Dec

This is a very cogent economic argument. Subjective valuation of goods and services. Well done!!

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @itsrealfake 6 Dec

awe, thanks

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 6 Dec

You’re welcome!