# Chapter 1: Digital Consumerism 

> Winning Inside the Internet 

**Published by:** [ANTIBLOG](https://paragraph.com/@lght.eth/)
**Published on:** 2026-01-22
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@lght.eth/chapter-1-digital-consumerism

## Content

It is imperative that we reframe certain topics that have become obvious in modern day minds. In a "first principles" economic context, we see two interdependencies between creation and consumption. With supply and demand being the natural evolution of each. Manufacturers, executives, organizers, engineers, operators - these are all individuals that create, or produce, goods and services. With the direct intention of these goods and services being used, or consumed. Our first question on this journey begins: "What is the difference between an analog good/service and a digital one?" At present there is a fair amount of dissonance around the latter. "Why would I pay for this?" "Does anyone have a stream link?" Etc. Moral aspects of this conversation aside, this memoir acknowledges the externalities born of two different technologies. For a moment, think of a physical stadium ticket and a digital one. Here are some new questions: 1. How secure is a physical ticket vs a digital? 2. How complex is it to transfer a physical ticket compared to a digital one? 3. How large, and where, are the secondary markets you can trade a physical ticket vs a digital ticket? 4. How simple is it to replicate a physical vs digital? The properties of the same good produce different circumstances, and different second-order effects around this 'same' item. There are pros and cons to each of course. This is not a case for disregarding the analog world in favor of the digital, nor is it a case of one having moral superiority over the other. We are simply looking to understand and then leverage the digital space. ☆ Returning to the beginning, creation and consumption. It would now be wise to ask: What is the difference between analog consumerism as compared to digital consumerism? Until the advent and democratization of new frontier technologies - specifically cryptographic blockchains - digital goods and services have had an ephemerality to them. On the production side of these digital goods and services, this has led to a rent-seeking model for revenue (fees, subscriptions, licensing). More questions: 1. If you can copy it digitally who owns it? 2. If it's free to distribute how much should a customer pay? 3. If everyone can have it how do we differentiate goods/services? The analog economy is one that operates at the "supply and demand" layer. Meaning at a first principles level, scarcity. The finite amount of a good or service is what has allowed creators and consumers to agree upon a market price. Though what happens when we realize digital goods and services do not neatly abide by the same supply and demand constraints? Supply becomes artificial. Determined at the discretion, and often arbitrarily, by producers and platforms of digital consumerism. Think for a moment of a subscription service for something other than streamers - where new goods (media) are being uploaded. A software program subscription. The code is polished the moment you purchase it. Yet you continue paying for it? If born early enough you remember buying plastic boxes with software programs in them at office supplies stores. Popping a disk into your computer and never looking back. The economic lens of this development leads me to infer that the creators of said code-based services realized one-time purchases would not allow them to scale as aggressively. It is not a matter of memory or device constraints when factoring in cloud storage and smartphones. Instead, digital consumers pay for access to programs instead of the programs themselves. Which begs another question: Why are we no longer allowed to pay for goods and services in the 'buy once, own forever' manner of analog consumerism? ☆ Having briefly touched on the novel externalities consumers have because of digitally-natured goods and services (stadium tickets). The entrepreneurial authorities of the times have successfully phased digital consumerism to deal more in access than possession. It would be naive to assume this phasing did not allow said authorities to earn outsized value. Which we will touch on more specifically in following chapters. What we have surmised so far is that digital goods and services are disorganized/uncoupled in a manner their analog counterparts are not. This disorganization, though chaotic, produces diverse economic streams/mechanisms towards generating wealth. ☆ In a generalized sense I believe the internet will remove scarcity. At the same time, I understand we exist in a certain context articulated above. To shift levers of control in digital consumerism, in large part thanks to cryptography, will take time. Though one can benefit from the paradigm shift now even if not to the heights of the ideal. Rather than trying to possess digital goods and services you've been intentionally cut free from, the consumer is challenged with an abundance of access to the same products/services. Apple Music, Spotify, Soundcloud, Amazon Music, Bandcamp, TIDAL, Pandora, YouTube Music. Everyone owns the same thing digitally. I could argue this removes some of the core identity mechanisms involved in consumption as identity signaling. A crucial psychological/sociological aspect of consumerism, whether analog or digital. After years spent engaging in these topics, I've come to see curation as a second-order level of digital consumerism. High level: - If access is democratized, individual discernment can be leveraged. - Arrangement, curation, preference, taste; these become scarce resources in abundance. - The well-curated digital consumer can shift from consumption to production. Which brings about a new set of questions. When does the consumer become the creator? Who captures the value when arrangement itself generates demand? If the line between the two is collapsing, what does digital creation even mean? Winning Inside the Internet is a serial release. All chapters will be published on enrgy.me for those interested.

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