The prediction, in brief:

By separating revenue collection from acquisition of copies, hard drives and computers can disappear and become just part of the plumbing that conveys information-age goods between producers and consumers. Computers and telecommunications links become invisible, a transparent window through which individuals can communicate, cooperate, coordinate, and compete as members of an advanced socioeconomic community.

Predictor: Cox, Brad

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Brad Cox, founder of the Coalition for Electronic Markets and a faculty member in George Mason University’s Program on Social and Organizational Learning, writes:”Where software’s ease-of-replication is a liability today (by disincentivizing those who would provide it), superdistribution turns this liability into an asset by allowing goods to be distributed for free. Where software vendors must now spend heavily to overcome software’s invisibility, superdistribution would thrust software out into the world to serve as its own advertisement. Where the personal computer revolution isolates individuals inside a stand-alone personal computer, superdistribution establishes a cooperative/competitive community around an information-age market economy. By separating revenue collection from acquisition of copies, hard drives and computers can disappear and become just part of the plumbing that conveys information-age goods between producers and consumers. Computers and telecommunications links become invisible, a transparent window through which individuals can communicate, cooperate, coordinate, and compete as members of an advanced socioeconomic community.”

Date of prediction: January 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Economic structures

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: Superdistribution

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/superdis_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney