The Digital Future of Economic Development Aid

2010 April 7
by Dave

Technological developments have brought us to a very interesting economic position. Production of and trade in goods and services that are not essential to survival are the foundations of any economy that moves beyond mere subsistence. The advent of a division of labor guarantees that someone will be good enough at doing something that he or she will acquire  more goods than are necessary for survival. At first these will be shared out as gifts to build a web of obligations that act as a social safety net, but eventually someone will come up with something new that is not strictly necessary and can be traded to the individual with disposable goods. And so here we are.

Digital distribution has allowed a large amount of these non necessary luxury goods to require no incremental production costs and little ongoing investment beyond the time of the creator. Since economics is not a zero sum game digital content creation theoretically allows for unlimited overall wealth creation due to the lack of need for physical inputs beyond the things that an individual requires these days any way. We won’t reach an economic singularity because there are constraints on how much content can be consumed. Of course if computer programs with access to funds start authoring and buying poetry from each other then all bets are off.

Any way, my point is that if you want give economic development aid to a community a cost effective method is to empower as many people as are so inclined  to create and monetize content.

You could sell easy to use kits for recording and uploading music. The village cell phone lady could have a recording studio that uploads to an NGO music portal that feeds proceeds back to the artist and the producer.

An NGO could fund a road show that went to internet cafes in developing countries and taught blog monetization techniques.

Here in America we could provide extra arts education that focuses on revenue creation to interested students in under performing schools. A whole generation of latent pixel artists, musicians, graphic artists, web site developers and authors would benefit greatly from even a minuscule income stream tied to a productive hobby.

Why give a goat to a rural third world family when you can give them an electric guitar?

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