I Want It All

In David Streitfeld's Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It, the saddest moment for me was the moment when he described one of my favorite places, Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, OR as an example of an entity that has been negatively impacted by the changing habits of book buyers. I love books. Physical, paper books. But I also believe that technology and the screen not only provide readers with exciting changes in how they can access books but to writers for creating new ones as well.

So as I read these articles I struggled to figure out how I should best resolve this kind of contradiction. I came to the obvious conclusion: I want it all. I want to get my news for free without having to worry about how the journalists and photographers are paid (for example the article linked up above), I want free access to music whenever I want on IMEEM, download songs for free on BitTorrent, to sell my books online, save money on text books, watch Family Guy, Arrested Development and The Office for free and when I want on Hulu and I want Boulder Bookstore, Powell’s, Bart’s CD Cellar and The Video Station to all stay in business.

Is it possible that some of the problems with having infinite choices is that a) we really believe it and b) we have a constant and misguided sense of entitlement to it? When (and I say when because I think this is inevitable) most physical stores go out of business, making way for more and more online markets, some of our choices as to where we can buy music, movies and books are taken away. Maybe the very reason why I find online media access so appealing (the infinite choices, or at least the illusion of such) is the same reason why I don’t want Powell’s to go under. I am so used to getting everything I want that it is unfathomable, unfair and frustrating that a choice could just be taken away from me. I, like David Streitfeld seems to be, am upset that physical marketspace is disappearing but don't for example want to give up my emusic account. The internet has spoiled us. With every dollar, we as consumers cast our vote for where we think goods and art should be purchased, so why can't we just get behind those votes?

What Anderson seems to be getting at in his intro of Long Tail is that art’s move to the online market is giving more choice to the consumer in what they are exposed to and experience as opposed to when there were only six channels and a handful of records. But what about having the choice between browsing, the physical experience of discovering an aura filled object and downloading code that is projected as Ulysses on your Kindle ? There is a clear distinction between physically browsing the ballroom of Boulder Bookstore or the blue room in Powell’s and clicking through titles on amazon. There is something so wonderfully human about physically browsing books, records and movies and I still want that to be available to me; but until I use my votes ($) in the physical world I think I would be selfish and unrealistic to think that I can have something that I only support in theory.

P.S. Ok so I am at work right now and our tech guy just showed me this cartoon on book technology on this gaming site that I thought I would share: Progress