The supply and demand model can be seen in almost every market. The sell side (supply) and the buy side (demand). It's hardly ever balanced. One always outweighs the other but not by a very wide margin. I don't think it can ever become fully balance because through the imbalance comes arbitrage opportunities or profit making.
However, in the digital world, there seems to be an almost wide supply and demand imbalance especially when it comes to the information sector. There's an infinity of information and humans can't even process a quarter of them.
Infinite Supply
Thanks to technology, the financial cost of producing content has become near zero. And this doesn't only apply to content producing but almost all things digital. Starting a business has become way easier and cheaper now than a decade ago. If it wasn't for Taskmaster4450, I wouldn't have realized that my Hive account is a business. Have you noticed that?On Web 2.0 platforms, you normally have the option to either create a personal or business account. With Web 3.0 like Hive, you're account is a business by default. The capabilities and infrastructure has already been built into it. When a thing gets digitized, it's just a matter of time before the cost of producing it drops to zero. I'm not sure whether it's a technological or digital law but it's a law nonetheless.
If the cost of producing is zero. Anyone can literally act as a supplier. So production happens with or without a demand. In many cases, the demand is scarce but that doesn't deter people from putting out the product (content) especially when it's free. We produce and produce and produce.
Not Enough Actual Demand
On the other side of the spectrum, consumers don't ask or demand for all this information. Yet it's given to them. This is how things like the 'infinite scroll effect' come into play when it comes to social media. We can scroll for a whole day and still not exhaust all the available content, talking less of the new ones coming in.
Want vs need.
On the surface, it might seem like we want many things but if you scratch the surface and reach the depths, we don't need most of the things we demand. It's just our mind and restless emotions tricking us with the instant gratification mechanism.
One of the main reasons why the personalization or customization industry (it will eventually become an industry!) is predicted to be huge is because all this infinity of information(data) will have to be organized and structured into a framework that becomes accessible based on a certain criteria or preference.
There are promising companies striding in this direction. For example, CB Insights. But it's fair to say that the digital world is still in it's infancy.
Thanks for reading!
Profile: Young Kedar
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