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We’re in the (bad) Habit of Associating Value with Scarcity

James Gleick, author of The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, says:

We’re in the habit of associating value with scarcity, but the digital world unlinks them. You can be the sole owner of a Jackson Pollock or a Blue Mauritius but not of a piece of information — not for long, anyway. Nor is obscurity a virtue. A hidden parchment page enters the light when it molts into a digital simulacrum. It was never the parchment that mattered.

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