It occurs to me that every time a “link” is sent via email or IM or whatever, the “value” of the transaction is largely dependent on whether the receiving party has seen the “link” before… And so I’m curious what would happen if you ran a simulation of a traditional economy, wherein every time an individual encountered a “bill” bearing a particular serial number, that one unique piece of currency was immediately devalued, but only for that person? How would you go about building and maintaining wealth in a system like this? Also worth considering, I suppose, is the reputational currency earned by sending “fresh” links & debased by sending too many “old” ones. And what happens as media evolve and the viral spread of “links” becomes more perfect? Won’t that lead to a collapse of the “link” economy?
Related Topics: Social Objects, Artificial Scarcity
Great topic…When HipHop first hit the scene, it was mainly in the African American community. Today we know that is not the case. What then has occurred to the Cultural Currency of HipHop?