The prediction, in brief:

You could join a collective to purchase some information and decrease your actual cost by orders of magnitude – that is, until it is almost free. [A digital co-op could form a private online library and collectively purchase digital movies, albums, software, and expensive newsletters, which they would “lend” to each other over the Net] … increasing the margins where the poor can survive.

Predictor: Hughes, Eric

Prediction, in context:

In his 1994 book “Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World,” Kevin Kelly, editor of Wired magazine, writes:”Eric Hughes sees a role for digital pseudonymity – your identity is known by some but not by others. When cloaked pseudonymously ‘you could join a collective to purchase some information and decrease your actual cost by orders of magnitude – that is, until it is almost free.’ A digital co-op could form a private online library and collectively purchase digital movies, albums, software, and expensive newsletters, which they would ‘lend’ to each other over the Net. The vendor selling the information would have absolutely no way of determining whether he was selling to one person or 500. Hughes sees these kinds of arrangements peppering an information-rich society as ‘increasing the margins where the poor can survive.'”

Biography:

Eric Hughes co-founded the Cypherpunks with John Gilmore and Tim May. This group included cryptographers, privacy advocates and digital anarchists. They were known for a densely written e-mail list generating megabytes of issue-oriented scientific discussion weekly. He was the author of the Cypherpunk Manifesto. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1992

Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World

Title, headline, chapter name: E-Money

Quote Type: Partial quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 209

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty